[ZipItNita]

I would like to know how to make a horse more relaxed at the canter.

I currently ride my mare, in a combined training schedule consisting of hunter, and dressage. I notice that she's very very good at collecting and extending her trot, and really dropping to the bit and searching for the contact if I give her a release or something, but at the canter, she's very quick strided and tense. I want to know if there's any way to make her understand to get a more extended slow legged stride and softening her shoulders and neck. I think she may be having problems picking up her inside hind because she's build downhill with tiny little legs on a beef cake QH body, haha.

Is there anything I can do to help her relax, slow down, and move her legs a little less quickly so that I don't feel like I'm riding a 12 hand galloping pony? Haha.

Side note: canter poles... aren't very good for her. She'll do very good going over a set of them, and then after the last one, she'll get really fast... kindof like a jumping horse, running towards the next jump. Hah.

[Gutter_Doll]

There's an old saying; "Most horses have never loped enough to do it slowly."

[Showrider]

I think just the more cantering you do, the more the horse will settle to it. Chances are if your horse is working beautifully at the trot as you say she's probably had more of her training focused on her trot rather than evenly with the canter- which is really common. Sort of like with horses who are always lunged in side reins at the trot over and over again every time (hello every horse I have ever bought!), then you ask them to canter and they are galloping all over the place, a bundle of nerves without a clue.

I think just cantering her a lot more than you are now, just practice practice practice. Give her HEAPS of praise in the canter, it might help her to settle a little and realize she's doing something right.

I had a horse who had a beautiful trot but, as your horse is, was just lost in the canter. I eventually got a nice canter out of him, my method was cantering him in open fields or in a large arena in as big as a circle as I could get, not worrying about getting him on the bit or anything like that. It was quite uncomfortable at first haha but after a few circles he would start to get tired and relax, and then his canter would be half-decent haha. Over time he started getting better and better, and then I gradually brought him down on the bit and got him to canter more in 'frame'.