Trotter horse?

Question

at the moment im training a trotter horse to walk, trot and canter for a riding school. its goin quite well. but does anyone have any tips on how to get her more collected in the trot and get into the canter better without lots of kicking?

and before any1 asks i have traned horses before so have experience just not with trotters

any help would be great

Answer 1

My my you have a problem one there. Firstly you have to remember that a trotting horse has been broken in to ONLY trot. When ever he would have broken of the trot into the canter he would have been punished. Most trotting horses are owned by gypsies and I am not saying that they are bad people but they can be hard on their horses. So this horse will not want to canter especially a collected canter as it has been trained to extend its body out to extend the trotting to be as fast as possible. To canter in collected form requires the horse to tuck its bottom round and haunch the body slightly and as you know this is done by pushing the horse forward with the legs and maintaining a fairly tight rein OR by tweaking each reign from each side so that the head goes under.  Personally I would not attempt to try a collected canter until you have a good normal canter and this could take quite a while. To make sure the horse does not bolt, always start the canter on the corner so that the horse has to bend the right way, will start on the correct leg and not be able to bolt off quite so easily.

Collected trot is the same don't start to ask the horse too much too soon, just try a slow trot to start off with, don't worry if he is sticking his head out just get him at the pace you want for a few weeks and then start to bring the head down.

In my opinion you will never have a very comfortable canter on this horse and it will always be a bit bouncy so just make sure your bottom is stuck to the saddle with super glue!

Good luck my dear x

Answer 2

Use a martingale! About theh kicking...young horses seem to get frisky at the canter because it is a play gait. It is just a time thing! Make sure you canter her quite a bit though.

Answer 3

To get her more collected ,try sitting back in your saddle and shortening your reins.