hi it's josie and today i'd like to share with you a really simple exercise that i do
with my horses to help improve the canter transition so the trot to canter transition
to do this exercise your horse will need to know how to trot how to canter and how to
leg yield because we use the leg yield to set the horse up to do a better canter transition
if you don't know how to do a leg yield i'll link in the description my leg yielding videos
so you can go and have a watch of them and if you stay till the end i will actually show
you two ways to take this exercise a little bit further out for a little bit more of an
advanced horse i'd love for you to tell me in the comments if you or your horse struggles
with the canter transition and what part of it do you think you're struggling with to
do this exercise you also need to have a basic understanding of how the horse's footfalls
go in canter and i have also done a video on that and what the aids are i've done another
video on that so i hope you can see that all these skills that i teach you all build on
one another and what you need to do as a rider is take the time to learn them individually
and then we put it all together it's exactly the same way we teach our horse we break it
down for him and then we put it together when you're learning these things you need to break
it down for you and take the time to perhaps not concentrate on the horse so much but to
concentrate on getting the skills that i'm teaching you down so that then you can do
those skills on automatic pilot while you then teach your horse that's how horse training
works let's get on with it so i'll give you a little talk through what we're going to
do so that you can follow along and then i will show you what we're going to do i'm going
to do it in walk here so i'm going to come around on a circle with rebel and when i get
to just before this marker i'm going to leg yield him two horse steps out one two then
i'm going to go half halt half halt when the hind leg the outside hind leg sorry is on
the ground why is that because that's the leg that pushes the horse into canter that's
the first step of canter so when i push him out in the leg yield i transfer his weight
out there and then i half halt him onto that hind leg just to get a little bit underneath
him and a little bit more balanced and then i ask him to canter and i should get a better
canter transition so let's see how it looks it's hard for me to tell you what i'm doing
as i'm doing it because i find that now i've taught myself to do these things on automatic
pilot when i start having to think about them again to tell you when i'm doing it it mucks
all my timing up but i'll give it my best shot but that's what happens when you learn
these things they happen on automatic pilot so what i'll try and do is i'll go one two
as i leg yield one first leg yield step two second leg yield step and then i'll go now
now as i half halt and then i'll go canter so it'll be leg yield leg yield half halt
half halt canter
so first of all i want a nice trot in a nice tempo coming around thinking about where i'm
going to leg yield one two half halt half halt canter good boy
actually wasn't too bad especially for the first one he's done for the session
so again i've got a nice little tempo here sitting leg yield leg yield half halt half
halt canter good that was a better canter transition than the other one whoops he's
left a leg behind there pick it up on the next round rebel
okie dokie leg yield leg yield leg yield half halt half halt canter sorry i didn't continue
with that leg you because the first time he ignored my leg
so what i did then was i just corrected that until i got him to leg yield
all right we've done three times that way we'll change the rein and try the other way
so your horses will always find one way easier than the other leg yield leg yield half halt
half halt canter
let's try that again leg yield leg yield half halt half halt canter good
nope i said nope then because he was falling on his face if you're wondering and what i
did was i put my core on really strong and closed my fingers until he stopped leaning
on my hands good boy
so once your horse is doing that now to take it a little further on as you come into the
corner here sit think about leg yielding and then canter and hows that's for a transition
good boy
so we'll do that again we'll come into the corner here i'll leg yield him in and then
ask him to canter good boy
and trot again good boy once you've got that one come on to the quarter line leg yield
him over half halt half halt canter good good boy
we will usually do those exercises in sets of three and then go off and do something
else and then come back to it so you have three goes then go do a leg yield from the
center line out and then come back and try that again the reason you don't want to keep
doing it is a you don't need to drill the horse b if you keep doing something like that
without giving them a break in between they are going to start anticipating and say every
time you sit in the saddle or every time you start to do leg yield the horse is going to
offer canter if he's done that do not get cross with him he's just trying to offer you
what he thinks you want and i love it when my horses anticipate things because to me
it tells me that they really want to work for me i hope you enjoyed that go out and
try it let me know how you go i love to hear from you guys and thanks for watching