hi it's josie and what i'd like to do with you today is show you a little exercise
that i do to help my horses improve their canter find their balance in their canter
so i'm going to break this down this exercise gets broken down into two pieces
and then we put those two pieces together to become one exercise i truly hope you
like my videos if you do please be sure give us a thumbs up subscribe to the channel if you haven't
and let's get on with it now your horse has to have a reasonably balanced canter to do this
doesn't have to be perfect but it does need to be reasonably balanced if he's not very
balanced in the canter or he doesn't listen to you go and do this exercise i'll link it up here
but it will absolutely get your horse to listen to you and stop running off if that's what he does
so for this exercise you're going to need to know where your lines on the arena are so
obviously you all should know this is the track we then have two quarter lines and they are
obviously a quarter of a way in so if an arena is ten long they're at the five meter mark that's
five so that's a quarter line that's the center line and that's a quarter line as well i call
it the three quarter line depending on which side i'm on because now it's the quarter line
so they're quarter lines and a center line you're going to use them in this exercise
so in canter the horse is always flexed and slightly bent to his inside leading leg so then
that will be the inside whichever leading leg is on and the other side will be the outside inside
and outside always pertains to the bend of the horse not necessarily where you are in the arena
so what we're going to do is these are two really good exercises they're actually working canter
loops to help your horse to find his balance more so the first um loop we're going to do is not
actually a loop it's a straight line which makes it a lot easier for the horse
flies are friendly
so what you need to do is get your horse into a nice canter with a nice rhythm and a nice tempo
and then you are going to ride a diagonal line to x so you need to know where X is
on your arena you're going to ride it from the corner letter so let's see if we can do that
so we want a nice balanced canter of a good tempo
spider just needs to be a little bit more forward come on so i'm going to go from H here
and i'm going to ride a straight line basically to where x would be and then i'm going
down the center line to A so i'm looking where a is
and if your horse isn't good enough to do the 10 meter canter circle here just trot here
spider could manage it but i'll show you so just trot and then pick the canter up again
good boy so here we go again this time we'll canter the half circle
but the trot is there if your horse you don't think he'll manage a 10 meter canter circle
good boy keeping him flexed to the inside which is his left
and then you can actually do it this way you can do from one side to the other
if you can canter the circle
okay so once you can do that what we're going to do
is canter down the center line and then canter over to the corner letter
see how we go with that so if your horse can't do this turn just trot
and then pick up canter on the center line so i'm riding straight towards C
when i get to B i'm keeping his nose to the left but I'm riding to M
in a nice straight line
i'm going to do the 10 meter circle here your horse is losing impulsion use your outside leg
to ask him center line i'm looking at K over here where the camera is so we'll get pretty close here
i'm looking at my letter aiming my outside fist for it
if at any time you feel your horse is losing his rhythm use your outside leg
give him a tap tap tap tap that's better so flexion to the left going up the center line
and then straight to X then we're going to M but make sure he keeps his flexion to the left
just his flexion a tiny bit of neck bend good boy spides off my inside leg mate that's the boy
and trot good
so once your horse is comfortable coming down the center line then going back over
to M and coming from the corner going to X and straight down the center line we're going to put
it together and your horse will be really doing a tiny little bit of counter canter
so make sure you have a nice canter with a nice rhythm remember if you lose impulsion
use your outside so we're riding straight to X here i'm going to go just before X now
and straight a little bit and now i'm going to ride him to M good boy how's that
he just did two parts of an exercise put it together we're going to do it again here i'm
going to ride to H and if you any time you feel your horse is losing his balance go straight here
and just do the rest the basic first part of the exercise good boy
good boy
then i will usually come back and make this more of an arc on
a quarter line counter canter rather than going so deep good boy
good
and then when you've done a little bit of this
what you should do is set him up and send him forward good boy
good
good boy
i hope that exercise will help you and your horse find your balance and also
do your first steps towards counter canter thanks for watching guys