The debate about cantering in
harness has been ongoing for years and in this film we are going
to discuss our viewpoint
on the subject. In our opinion we think that horses should be taught to work
happily
at all paces in harness which includes the canter and gallop.
We believe that a horse should be safe, confident
and happy in any sphere of harness work and the more your horse can do in harness
the more confident it will be and the wider both of your horizons will be.
Whether you want to compete in driving trials
where faster paces can make the difference between winning or losing,
use the canter to aid interval training for fitness on a pleasure drive,
or give your coaching team a helping hand by letting them spring a hill,
canter should be treated as a valuable additional
not to mention natural gait just like the walk and trot.
So why do some people say not to canter in harness?
One reason they state is that the horse will then start breaking to canter at the
trot
which is frowned upon in the show ring and or in a harness race.
A ground covering extended trot can indeed be faster than a bouncy canter,
however breaking pace is in the hands of the driver. The fine line between pushing
your horse forwards to get it to extend to show the judges what they want to see
yet asking it to remain at the trot before it thinks about changing gait
should be able to be felt by the driver and corrected
before the horse actually changes pace. Just as you should be able to get an
active walk out of your horse without him breaking to trot,
the same logic applies when focusing on the trot to canter transition.
In harness racing hobbles are often used
to keep the horses at a trot - you would not expect to see these in the showring
however. If your horse will work happily at all paces,
if it does break to a canter it is no big deal;
you simply ask it to come back to a trot and do some more work
on discipline and transitions. If your horse has never experienced a canter
then if it ever does break to a canter from a trot as you're trying to extend
for example,
it could panic and bolt. You could then be left with reschooling a runaway;
a terrified horse who has physical and mental scars from the incident
who requires complete retraining long before you can start working on your
basic trot transitions again -
if indeed it is even happy to go back in harness.
Some people argue that by teaching a horse to canter
it is more likely to run away because it encourages the horse to utilize its
faster gaits.
Notwithstanding the fact that a horse is a flight animal
and therefore faster gaits are instinctive to use,
by that logic if the driver was to only ever walk the horse
one would assume that their horse would never run. Yet how many carriage drivers have
experienced a horse breaking into a trot when it is walking
for example if it gets startled by a bird jumping out of a hedge?
How many have experienced a horse attempting to walk off when it has been asked
to stand still
for example at a road junction. If we never walked the horse in harness
we would assume that it should always remain at a perfect halt between the shafts.
This would be highly impractical yet people are happy to apply the same reasoning
to canter
when really it should be nothing to be afraid of. As drivers should we really
advocate that our horses should only work at the walk
in case any faster gait encourages them to bolt? In our opinion it is the schooling
and training of the horses
and the control of his paces through the driver and confidence both in the
driver and himself
that is key. We believe in training the horse
at every pace and then the driver can choose which pace to work at.
If you are worried about your horse breaking into a canter then consider
why you are worried;
perhaps it is your own fear of the horse getting out of control
due to a lack of training or confidence, or concerns about how the horse will
react
indicating a lack of training for example. Problems with transitions are
a training matter
and should not be resolved by eliminating one pace from the horse's
driving.
You should deal with the root cause of the problem not mask it,
a principle which is further explained in our video about the use of kicking
straps.
To use a different analogy, if you are driving a car with five gears
you should be capable of controlling that car in all five gears.
We do not take our driving test solely in first gear
and then assume that this will eliminate us from having an accident.
Whether you choose to drive everywhere in first gear is your choice
but at least you know if you do want to use the other four higher gears
you can do so. A car that only has one gear would not be safe to take on a
motorway for example
where every other car might be traveling in 5th gear, yet cars that have five gears can
go everywhere a car with one gear can.
So why do we canter on the roads as well as on grass?
Some people state concussion as a factor in why they only walk on the roads;
this point is discussed in more detail in our the film about roadwork.
We ensure every horse we train has cantered both on the road and on grass.
People often say that their horse gets excited when worked on grass
so we want to ensure we can work the horses at a fast pace
on a surface that they usually associate with play
in a wide open space so there are no visual barriers such as a fence to
restrain them.
Asking the horse to come back from a gallop to a halt in a rubber bit
while heading towards home shows that the horse is listening to the driver
and has been trained properly. In our opinion this is better than being faced
with an overexcited horse pulling on the bit
and possibly becoming uncontrollable and the driver being
unable or unwilling therefore to take them on grass.
We also canter horses on the roads because the noise of the carriage behind
the horse is
somewhat muted on a grass or sand surface.
On the roads any rattling noises from the vehicle can be heard clearly
as well as the noise of the horses' own hooves.
If your horse has only cantered on grass, the increased noise of the carriage
at a fast pace behind the horse out on a road can startle it.
The horse thinks there is a scary monster chasing it and then bolts.
Therefore we ensure that horses have experienced the canter on a solid
surface
out on the roads. We canter them
both on the flat and while going up hill
showing that they are controllable when they have no weight behind them on the flat
just the same as they are controllable when they're going up hill
and have to pull the full load of the carriage.
This further enhances the point that the horse is under the driver's control
in a variety of different situations both
on and off-road and that the driver can control them
at every pace both on and off road. Even if owners choose to only canter their horses
off road once they take them home
as trainers our job is to give horses the best possible start to their education
and that means exposing them to situations that they could encounter
so that they're less likely to be frightened should it ever happen in the
future.
If a horse is trotting down the road and slips, breaking into a canter,
we think the driver should simply be able to ask the horse back to a trot
and continue on their drive rather than be faced with a bolting horse
on the public highway and potentially a major disaster
all because canter work was not included during the horse's initial training.