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The Rider

The canter is a major turning point for the novice rider. You will be well into your lessons when you are first introduced to the canter and will have begun to work on refining your sitting and rising trot and have been introduced to many of the essential elements of riding (dressage) such as contact, collection, using the correct leg aids, bend and weight aids. You are going to have to put most of these together correctly for the first time in order to canter.

Unlike asking for trot from walk, simply asking for more speed does not automatically ensure that your horse will canter.  If you simply close your legs and push your horse forward from trot, you may end up with an extended trot, a very fast trot, a canter or possibly something else.

To correctly ask for canter, you should aim to make your transition in a corner at first.  This makes it easier for the horse and will help you get the correct leg even if you don't quite get your aids correct. 

At the novice level the canter always begins from sitting trot.  The horse begins to canter with the outside rear leg, so you must signal the horse that you want canter (not just faster trot) by asking for that leg to be brought under its body more in preparation for the first canter stride.  Therefore, your outside leg slides back behind the girth and asks for the first canter stride, then almost immediately your inside leg will begin asking for the increased impulsion required for the transition into canter. 

Your outside hand must ensure that speed is controlled (remember speed is not the same as impulsion), your inside hand continues to ask for the correct bend.  However, you must make sure that you do not restrict the natural movement of your horse's head, the picture at the top of this page shows an advanced horse cantering in an high level of collection but it is unlikely that your 'learners' horse will be in this outline so you must allow for some movement.

Once the transition is achieved, you must learn to sit to the canter stride.  The first problem, as with most riding, is tension.  At first the novice rider will try to grip into the saddle during the canter and as with all other gaits this will tend to pop you out of the saddle rather than allowing you to softly sit in it. This is particularly true of knee tension in this stride, a locked knee in the 'grip' position will make the lower leg totally ineffective and tend to tip you forward.  Locked in a straighter position i.e. jammed into the stirrup will force you up and out of the saddle and again make your lower leg ineffective.

The novice rider, must therefore concentrate on doing as little as possible in the canter.  Your instructor may try to encourage you to soften your seat even more with descriptions of pushing your seat forward, or 'grinding' the saddle.  Try to avoid taking this too literally. When cantering, you really only need to sit tall and allow your belly and lower back to rise and go forward with the horse's back (see photo).  Putting too much effort in will cause tension and can be as unbalancing as locking up.  

Instead be aware of where the tension lies, ensure that you keep your legs in the same position as you have established in the walk and trot and allow your lower back and seat to follow the movement with wide, soft hips and loose knees.  Keep your upper body tall, but don't be tempted to 'row' your shoulders to imitate the look of a rider in canter, you should be aware of your elbows and try to keep them under control as it is very easy to adopt the 'cowboy' look of flapping arms in the canter.

For your first canter lessons you may find that you feel completely out of control, that you're falling off or just frightened.  Any or all of these feelings are perfectly normal and some of the problems of the learner rider in the first few canter lessons are discussed in cantering on.

The leg is used (when required) on the one-beat of the canter.  By this stage you should be aware of the footfalls of the horse in canter and be able to recognise when each leg strikes the ground. If you can't do this automatically, practice by counting out the beat 1-2-3, 1-2-3.  The 1 beat is the outside hind, the 2 beat is the inside hind and outside fore and the 3 beat is the inside fore - then there is the moment of suspension when all legs are off the ground prior to beginning again (you can count this as 4 if it helps)

Cantering over poles, in the flat seat, is used to help teach the horse to stretch out in the canter and lift its feet to produce a more powerful and supple canter. 

The 2-point or 3-point jumping position is often introduced to help gain balance and independent hands in the canter, however if your natural positional fault is to crouch\lean forward you should be aware that this may lead to a false sense of security in that you can use this 'balance' in the canter, instead of sitting deeply and softly in the seat as you should.

Simple changes are a pre-cursor to the advanced movement of flying change.  Although, in truth they can certainly be as hard to perform as a flying change on many horses.  A simple change is a transition from canter to trot and back to canter when changing rein.  Most frequently a simple change is performed in the centre of a figure eight, there are 2 or 3 steps of trot on the straight section between the two circles and then the opposite canter is begun on the new bend.  The difficulty in this movement is the speed of the transition between the movements in the short space of time.
 

The transition into canter can now be refined, when going from rising trot to canter, you should aim to make a seemless transition between the two gaits without any visible strides in sitting trot.  To do this you should give your horse the canter aids while in rising trot and sit as you feel the horse's back rising in the first canter stride.

A consistent rythmic canter is also the key to good jumping and should be developed on the flat, the rider ensuring that he\she can canter a 20 metre circle and long straight in the same cadence, without letting the horse either speed up or get low and flat in the canter.  

The horse should be able to hold a correct outline in the canter and a common requirement of many dressage tests is a demonstration of self carriage.  The advanced rider can practice this when a correct canter outline is established, giving away and then retaking the reins on several consecutive strides without the horse either slackening pace, speeding up or 'falling on his face'.

Flying changes are essentially only changes from one canter lead to another in mid stride.  As with all movements, it is important for the horse to be balanced and collected and you should have a well established seat prior to asking for a flying change.  Begin learning on an experienced horse that can perform the movement easily, so that you are concentrating on your aids and not on whether the horse understands what you want or can physically perform the change.

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