Question: I have a nine year old Arabian mare. She is very green broke. I use her for hunt seat and dressage. She is a great mover with lots of foward movement. My problem is her canter. It is very fast and uncomfortable to sit. She needs to balance and collect herself. I know if she would get her hindquarters underneath her it would improve. If you could suggest some exercises or training tips I would greatly appreciate it. Jenna

Answer: Hello Jenna - as usual the answer is long winded.

You described my TB mare when I first got her several years ago - exact same issues. My mare had a terrible canter, two fast and very unbalanced. It was like trying to ride a pronging deer. I'll try and give you some training techniques/tips but they will be general since I don't have much to go on regarding your mare.

1) is she in a pasture setting or stall? I would recommend a pasture if possible. Sometimes the problem is horses spend their entire lives in stalls (other than the 30 minute turn-out) and they don't learn how to carry themselves. It wouldn't be a cure all but it would help greatly in her training.

2) Go back in her training.

Go back to walk and trot and make sure she is soft flexible and collected before trying to get it at the canter. Starting at the halt apply gentle rein pressure and ask her to give at the pole - the instant that she does release the reins completely by droping them on her neck and give her a pat. Continue to do this until she gives in a relaxed way - then increase the time you want her to hold it by a few seconds before droping the reins. Once you have her giving at the halt and she can hold it for 10 seconds repeat the procedure at the walk.

At the walk go back to square one by asking for a soft give at the poll (while applying enough leg pressure to keep a nice forward movement). The instant she gives drop the reins onto her neck and let her relax. When she gives reliably you can increase the amount of time you want her to hold the collected position. Once you have her giving at the poll in a relaxed manner at the walk ask her to collect and then do a shoulder-in movement - always making sure to do a complete release the instant she even tries to give you what you want. Again as she accepts and gives what you want slowly increase the time or number of steps she has to achieve the movement before releasing the pressure. After shoulder-in is achieved reliably then go to a haunches-out movement and repeat the process. When you have all of these movements reliably and relaxed at the walk then you go up to the trot and start at square one with the ask and release and make sure that she is relaxed and reliable in all of the movements before moving on to the next step.

Understand that no matter how good she at a movement in one gait it will take more time to get the same thing at the next gait. If you rode her 5 days a week for approx an hour the above could be accomplished in about 2/4 weeks depending on her learning capacity and your ability. If you ride her only once or twice a week then stretch that timeframe out by a factor of 4. When you have accomplished all of the above then she would be ready to start learning how to collect and balance at the canter. The reason she goes so fast at the canter is because speed helps her balance herself - the slower the canter the more muscle and balance the horse has to have. Once you are ready to bump her up into canter it's important that you start the lesson with refreshing her on all of the movements at halt, walk, and trot. Get her nice and relaxed, but not too tired. Then from a collected trot ask her in the very gentlest way to come up to the canter. If she goes all helter skelter then immediately bring her back to the trot, collect her up and ask again and keep doing this until you get a reasonable transition into canter (making sure that you recognize when she has tried to give you what you want - don't expect perfection). The instant that she gives you a good canter transition then release her completely (reins on neck) and let her drop back to trot and then walk and give her a good pat. What should start happening is she will be eager to give you what you want because it means she gets a release from pressure. You want to gradually increase the time she performs the movement making sure to release her completely at the end as a reward. If you have a problem with too much speed at the trot then circle her in small 10 meter circles until she relaxes then go back to a straight line. Each time she gets excessively speedy circle her until she relaxes. It takes more energy to circle then it does to go in a straight line and eventually she'll figure out what it takes to do the least amount of work.