Canter Work

We had a great lesson with Danny tonight. Worked on a looooot of canter. I was happy that Legacy came back from the weekend perfectly sound and with energy...he's ready to go. So we worked quite a bit on counter canter. Doing a 20m true canter circle and then a 20m counter canter circle. First of all, I need to learn to play with my fingers and the reins to keep him soft and not lock against him, because then we just get tenseness. I always need to be working on getting him rounder and more supple at every gait all the time. In the counter canter I need to keep him straight and get him balanced. We really started to get the feel of it and it got a lot better when I would push him with my hips and not hold him up with my hands. After doing the counter canter, his true canter gets so much more balanced, so that will need to become part of my daily workouts.

Next we worked on the medium canter (of which we don't have one yet). Legacy just falls in when I ask him to lengthen his stride. So we worked on getting him up and using my hips to control the length of the stride. The exercise I need to work on is lengthening for a few strides and then bringing him back with my seat and then lengthen again....and then I need to really push him down a long side to get him to really stretch his stride. When doing the medium on a circle I need to allow him to stretch over his back as much as he wants as long as he doesn't fall in. In order to keep him from falling in, I have to keep my outside shoulder back and use my outside leg and rein to keep him straight. Also, when going to the left, I have to ride with my inside leg back and my outside leg at the girth, but keep my hips going with his motion. I need to continually be asking him to move his hind end under him. I need to start pulling everything together and use all my legs independently. It seems that often times the key is straightness...so that's our focus.

~Kelly