hi it's josie and today i'd like to talk to you about canter in particular canter aids
and i'd really like for you to ask yourself this question do you know what aids you use to ask your
horse to go into canter and if you can't answer that question with a 100% clarity then how can
you expect your horse to know that you want him to canter perhaps he thinks he's got a multiple
choice question and he's just choosing whichever one he thinks is right now that's not very fair
for you or particularly your horse so in today's video i'm going to show you the aids that i use
to get my horses to go into canter the aids i use to ask for canter and it doesn't matter if i'm
riding a green horse that i've just started under saddle or if i'm riding an older horse that's a
little bit more advanced the aids are exactly the same for all horses it's just that their response
to those aids are a little bit different depending where they are in their education
so if you get some value from this video i would love it if you would give me a thumbs up and if
you haven't subscribe to the channel bottom right hand corner of the screen you'll find the button
to subscribe my hope is that by telling you this from the very beginning how i teach a completely
green horse you will have an understanding on how to teach your horse and you'll also have the tools
to go back if you need to teach another horse so with a really green horse that i'm starting under
saddle in the round yard the canter aid starts with a kiss a kissing noise i don't use a click
the click i use to ask the horse to go forward the kiss is a specific aid for canter because i
want the horse to actually canter once the horse understands that the kiss is for canter i then
bring the actual word canter in i always preface my word canter with the word AND so it becomes
AND canter if you watch any of my young horse handling videos or lunging i'll link one up here
you will see that i use the word and a lot the AND is basically equivalent to
the half halt under saddle it's just an aid to tell the horse listen something else is
coming i'm about to ask you to do something that's literally what a half halt is if i'm
training an older horse or one that i don't think has an understanding of the canter aids
and understanding the canter aid is a foundation that you should put down on your horse
because it flows onto so many things it allows you to do beautiful transitions be that a simple
trot to canter transition walk to canter halt to canter or even flying changes they all
their their beauty and perfection comes from teaching your horse the canter aid correctly
so if i'm training an older horse or a horse that i don't think has an understanding of the cant
canter aid sorry i'll take that horse back and pop it on the lunge and i will teach it
to canter on the lunge to the word canter like i do with the young horse in the round
yard that's so that i can then come on and we can take it to the saddle
so once the horse understands the correlation between the word canter and the canter transition
itself we take that to the saddle once it's in the saddle though YOU have to understand
how the horse canters because that has a huge bearing on how and when we ask the horse to canter
and to set him up to do a successful transition and do what we ask and i know that you like me
want to set your horse up for success so this might sound a little boring theory but it actually
is quite important so the horse canters the first stride of canter starts with the outside hind leg
then it is the diagonal pair and then it is the leading front leg now if you want
to know how you should use your seat when we're cantering which would definitely help
to do transitions i'll link that video up here go and watch that and then come back here
but it's the outside hind leg that starts the canter transition it pushes the horse
up into canter then it's diagonal pair then the leading front and how does that relate
let me tell you and i promise i'm going to get to some canter transitions in just
a minute but you do need to understand this so my aids for canter what are my aids for canter
i have a few canters actually asking for canter is actually quite complicated if you do it correctly
so the inside rein so inside depends on which leg's going to be leading or you want
to be leading inside rein ask for flexion flexion literally happens from the poll of the horse it's
really nothing to do with the neck but you may want a little bit of neck bend too so my inside
rein will just check like that on the inside bit to see that he's nice and soft and he's not going
to brace through the canter my inside leg sits on the girth and that is to help with forward motion
and also if you're on a circle to help with bend so when we have flexion of the inside
rein and is nice and soft there we have the outside rein as well now the outside rein
only comes into play if the horse tries to over bend his neck to the inside
but i also use it to give my horse two half halts and that's just a squeeze of the rein like that so
squeeze squeeze on the outside rein and i try and time it when my outside hind leg hits the ground
so that i can load that hind leg a little more because he's going to need to do a big push off of
that and when he gives a big push up into canter off of that if it's a little bit loaded that makes
it a little bit easier for him so the outside rein is to stop the neck bend two half halts half halt
half halt then canter the outside leg is to go back behind the girth and only goes back about ten
centimeters four inches so so from there to there now i personally don't run my leg along my horse
i use that aid when i want to get them to move their haunches in or out whichever way i want it
but i take my leg comes sort of out and around and off and then on for canter the reason you
really need to know the footfalls of the horse is that you should try to time that leg going
on as the outside hind leg is coming through to step under the horse because only then does he
have enough time for your message to get from your leg to his brain to his hind leg to say
now stop from the two beat trotting motion get underneath and push off and let's go into canter
the outside hind leg also stays mine does back the entire time i'm in canter that allows my horse
to know that when my leg is there you canter you don't drop out of canter into trot you canter and
you stay in canter it also helps push that outside hind leg under the centre of gravity of the horse
because when that hind leg is on the ground your horse has all of his weight and your weight on
that one hind leg and just if it was out away from the body he'd be falling over and very unbalanced
so we try to keep that hind leg in under the center of gravity of the horse so the
canter transition soft on the inside yes he is half halt outside half halt outside canter
good boy when i said canter was when i used my outside leg
i want my outside leg
come back to trot good boy i'm going to try that again
sorry i can't tell everything as they happen because they all happen so quickly
that it's a little hard but i'll see i'll tell you half halt half halt canter and you can just
know that i'm checking on the inside rein that is nice and soft to the inside okay
steady good half halt half halt canter good boy
good boy
half halt half halt trot
good try that again i don't i'll see if i can do my
leg where you might be able to see my outside leg
half halt half halt canter
so you may have seen me take my leg back there i hope you can
and when i said the word canter is when i pressed it on him and hugged him with my
inside leg as well because it's both legs when i want him to canter see if we can do one this way
try again good boy
half halt half halt canter good boy i lent a little bit into that canter transition if
you want to go back and watch it and he's a little on his front end l listen trot whoops
try that one again just try he's a little on the forehand this way good boy
good boy we're ready soft to the inside
no so i wouldn't have gone then because if you go back and watch that he board off and went on to
his front end would have been an ugly transition and i don't teach my horse's ugly transitions if
i can help it try that again nope he's boring off again here it's tea time he wants his tea
no we're not walking we're trotting good boy half halt half halt canter
and trot soft see he's hard on the inside now he's soft soft hard on the inside hard on the inside
soft soft canter yes so i really hope that helps you i just want you to know
when they're really green and i ask for canter i'll set them up and give the aids the with that
lead i want but for the first few times i don't care if they canter with the wrong lead
don't ask for too much at once as long as they canter they get patted and told good
so i hope you're enjoying this i hope it brought you some value and thanks for watching