My horse has a very large stride when she lopes and canters...?

Question

My horse has a very long stride when she lopes and canters. I try and collect her but she just breaks into a trot EVERY TIME!!! Any tips on how to keep her going but shorten up her stride?

Please help I have a show coming up!!!

Answer 1

I just bought a huge horse and it is certainly hard to get him to slow... I just keep trying to get him to do what I want. I pick him up into a lope and them slowly put my heels down and pull on the reins carefully to try to slow him easy... it took awhile  but he finally got it... hop this helps a little...

Good luck!

Answer 2

LOTS of circles!!!  First do circles that you can keep her going at a lope and gradually decrease the size of the circle.  As your size gets smaller and your horse gets used to it, she will shorten her stride and get handier.

Answer 3

As Rosie says, Circles definitely help, there are also other methods that you can use to shorten a stride...one of them is to ask for it from a standstill...if your horse is supple and moves off your legs, you should have no problem cantering from a standstill...it's much easier to keep a horse slow than it is to slow them down after they get their speed...if you don't get the stride that you want, stop your horse...repeat...over and over...sometimes change it to a backing up a couple or three paces and sitting still, then repeat the process..I always use (and you have seen me say it on here many times) the method of stopping and asking your horse turn back, with his head into the fence and go back the other way, at the same gait that you were in the first place...it keeps their hind in under them and builds up the muscles that they have to have to perform those slow, pretty strides...they not only have to be taught to do it, they have to have help developing the muscles that make it easier for them to do it...if you will notice, in a class, you always get your best canter going to the left, when your horse is still fresh, when you reverse and by the time that you get to your right canter, your horse is tired, his muscles are saying, "I can't gather up and do it any more, they are hurting, so he falls out and strings out his strides in the canter, pulling himself along with his front legs rather than using the impulsion from the rear, as he is supposed to do...If your horse is not consistent going both ways in a ring, there is only one thing that accounts for it...he hasn't been worked both ways equally so that both sides are developed equally and his muscles, (primarily haunches/back etc) is not developed enough to carry him through that much work.

Answer 4

As soon as you think shes brginning to think about trotting kiss and hold back a little. almost like you do when you ask for a canter from a stand still. kis and hold back then when you soften her and she starts to even think about trotting tell her to keep going let her know that trotting is NOT what your asking for.. hope i helped

Answer 5

My boy does that too, I keep a little bit of leg on him, just enough to keep him from stoping, then shorten my reigns ever so slowly.  If anything when you feel her start to cut off, even if she does ask for the canter again and keep trying.  Circles like said before are wonderful to slow a horse down.  good luck, i hope you do well!!