Uncontrollable Canter?

[XxRideForLifexX]

My horse has a very Fast uncontrollable canter. Even when I try to make him slow down he won't unless I tell him to completely stop. why??? He's halve western, so i suggested That his owners didn't teach him to properly canter. what do you think? I was thinking about getting a western saddle soon and see if he's better at loping, or if that's just how he is. Thanks

 

[chev]

Please get a good instructor to work with you and your horse before he really takes off with you and one of you gets hurt. I think this is the third time you've posted about him not listening to you especially in canter and nothing seems to be improving.

Does anyone else ride him?

Have you been taught to ride Western? It's not just a case of putting a Western saddle on him, you need to be able to ride Western too otherwise you'll just confuse him and make matters worse.

 

[carthorse]

Please get a good instructor to work with you and your horse before he really takes off with you and one of you gets hurt. I think this is the third time you've posted about him not listening to you especially in canter and nothing seems to be improving.

Does anyone else ride him?

Have you been taught to ride Western? It's not just a case of putting a Western saddle on him, you need to be able to ride Western too otherwise you'll just confuse him and make matters worse.

I completely agree with Chev.

To be brutally honest from your previous posts I suspect it isn't your horse that's the problem but you. You need a good instructor to assess the pair of you & then you need to be prepared to take instruction & put in some work. If you don't I fear that we'll soon read a post from you saying that you've had a bad fall &/or the horse has been sold on as unrideable.

Get some help. Now.

 

[eml]

Echo Chev and Carthorse. You seem quite inexperienced and we cannot guess from your words what is happening , please get some real life instruction. Whether you are aiming to ride Englsh or Western your horse needs training as do you as it is not a simple matter of putting different tack on.

 

[XxRideForLifexX]

Only I do,
I take lesson and I can walk,trot,canter and jump, I have an amazing instructor too.

And I'm almost sure its not me. I'm fine riding my other horse and the horses at my RS too. I don't tense up riding him or anything.. I don't kick him or pull him. My heels are down. Head up. Back straight,

I Can ride western but my main style is English.

This is a different question then my other one :|

I'm asking if there is a way to slow him down cause he's too fast.... Anything else just ask.

If there is NOTHING them maybe I'll get someone.. But I haven't gotten any answers besides getting an instructor.

 

[XxRideForLifexX]

I can't help but say how simple my question is... Is there a way to slow my horse down when he's cantering? And if you don't have an answer please don't say anything at all. Thank you.

 

[eml]

Do you understand the concept of half halt, is your horse balanced in trot and canter? Post a video if you do want genuine help.

Your question out of context is not simple and people are trying to help.Unless we can see what is happening , know how old your horse is , what experience you have no one can give helpful advice.

You also asked about Hunter /Jumper ...Bare in mind we are mainly UK based and many will not know what you are asking, I happen to as a friend produces a lot of 'hunter' types for export. A hunter producer is to my mind a far more talented rider than a pure jumper. Both jump similar heights at basic levels.

For UK riders hunter is judged on performance a bit like the jumping phase of WH/working show horse, correct leg at all times, flying changes.light constant contact and rhythmical round. SJ is like UK BS, get roundclear and fast no style marks!!

 

[Skib]

If you ask a question on a riding forum, you will get responsible answers.
You seem upset by the answers. But people wrote as they did because the way you wrote and the words you use, suggested that you know very little. Or are confused about the problems you face and need a teacher to help you .
You say your horse is half Western. People are worried for you because they don't recognise the term. One may train a horse to be ridden English or Western ,but we don't know what you mean by a Western horse. It is not a term in general use. There is no such thing as a half Western horse.
You can ride a horse Western style in an English saddle and you can ride English style in a Western saddle. It is the bridle and bit you use that can make a difference. But even that is not necessarily so.
The same applies to the words canter and lope. The English are the only people who use the term canter. It originates with the pilgrims who rode to Canterbury to the shrine of St Thomas a Becket. The word canter does not exist in French or German. The American word for canter is lope. So riding teachers on this British based forum don't understand why you think changing a canter to lope would solve your problems. The horse's legs move the same pattern in lope as in canter.

Two of the people who replied to you are experienced teachers who have helped me learn to ride and one of them rightly warned me that my lesson horse might not be safe for me. When my instructor rode the horse the following week, she came to the same conclusion and withdrew him from lessons.

No one here is being rude to you, but they do want to keep riders as safe as possible, regardless of age.

There is another possibility of course. That you are not a genuine beginner who is confused about riding terminology, but are a person without genuine problems and have posted these rather strange questions as a joke.

Yes there are ways to slow a horse down in canter. But first you learn how to slow the walk and stop and move off again in walk. Next you learn the same in trot, both sitting and rising which in America is known as posting. Then you teach the horse to alternate walk and trot. You should aim at alternating 4 steps walk and 4 steps trot . This gives your horse lots of practice listening to you slowing him down. Then you can start riding 5 or 6 steps canter and coming back to trot. Your horse should go into canter and stop cantering just when you ask. The canter will go slower on a circle so canter just a quarter circle and come back to trot. Gradually build up the length go your canters, to half a circle and then a whole circle, making sure the horse is listening to you. After some months practising you should be able to transition into and out of canter.

No one on an Internet forum can see you ride or tell you why your horse seems to you to be cantering too fast. We don't know why you seem to have no teacher. Or why you use words as if you don't understand what they mean. But don't be ungrateful to good riding instructors who were doing their best to help.

 

[Jessey]

Ditto all the above, its sound advise from very experienced people, please don't take offense to suggestions as all any of us can do is respond based on the information you have given and what we know from previous posts, although you do well on other horses and RS horses some horses have a slightly more difficult streak or are less well broke and you do need to have another level of skill to work with these and that is no one being rude, but you may find lessons on this particular horse really do help you develop the skills needed to work with a horse that isn't straight forward.

In the mean time there are a couple of things you can try which I use on my horses that do both western and English.
Firstly if the horse was primarily trained western you need to check your position, western horses are generally trained to be more sensitive to weight and pressure, so check you are sat deep and soft with your shoulders back and your legs at most very softly against his sides. The last bit there is the 1 biggest thing I note they struggle with when switching a horse from western to English (that and accepting a constant contact) western lays your leg in a very light contact, English, by the nature of the stirrup length (especially if you are riding jumper length) puts your leg in a firmer contact with their sides without even trying, you may need to drop to a dressage length and gradually bring it up, that normally helps.
Second as EML suggests half halts or rating him periodically should help, a constant pull will just give him something to lean against so should be avoided.
Third I agree with Skib, doing just a few strides at a time with literally 100's of transitions will help getting him not always thinking about rushing forwards all the time and get his butt under him ready to stop which will naturally slow him down, additionally lots of shapes and changes of direction (combined with the transitions) will really get him listening to what you are going to ask next, just running round the rail really encourages them to rush and motorbike rather than get their butt under them and control the power.
And you can try humming or singing through sitting trot and the transition into canter and throughout the canter, this helps relax your diaphragm & lower body which helps deepen your seat and western horses often respond well to this.

 

[KP nut]

How to slow your horse depends on why he is running fast. So you need some understanding of your horse to even ask a sensible question let alone put any advice into practice. Is he running because he is scared? Confused about what cues mean? Taking off with you because he likes it and he can? Taking you back to the barn because he wants to and he can? Because he has been trained to go from walk to fast canter with nothing in between? Your questions show you are too inexperienced to deal with a scared horse or a badly educated one who needs retraining to understand what you want. On the other hand plenty of young inexperienced riders survive on horses who are barely in control and do largely as they please and it teaches you a good seat in the meantime! So either get lessons pn rhix issor just carry on as you are, having a fun time on a horse who will not always behave. But if you ask training questions on here you need to drop the 'its really very simple" attitude, recognise that you are very very inexperienced and start listening and thinking a bit more about the advice you've been given.

 

[Wally]

There are as many reasons a horse's canter feels out of control as there are horses out there, to answer you question we need to really see him and you in action together to properly answer you.

 

[chev]

Only I do,
I take lesson and I can walk,trot,canter and jump, I have an amazing instructor too.

If you have an amazing instructor what does s/he think? An amazing instructor should be able to show you how to half halts and circles and such to help slow down. I'd also expect them to ride the horse too to see if he goes any better for them.

If there is NOTHING them maybe I'll get someone.. But I haven't gotten any answers besides getting an instructor.

So in the same post you're saying you'll get an instructor. So do you have one or not?

You have to understand that we are trying to help but it's almost impossible when the story keeps changing.

So do you have an instructor or not? If so, ask them to work in walk and trot transitions, half halts and pole work in walk and trot. For now forget cantering and work on walk and trot.

 

[Keren@serendipity]

From reading your other posts, you don't seem to be particularly comfortable with canter and it wasn't too long ago that yiy posted that you were just learning to canter. If you are anything like me bit will take months before you can truly confidently say "I can canter". Your other posts have been mainly issues with canter as well so I'm wondering whether because you aren't as experienced/comfortable with it yet you probably aren't as balanced, position isn't as good, aids aren't as clear and reaction isn't as quick which is why the horses are napping and basically not focusing on you, just doing their own thing. This isn't criticism because heaven knows I'm not an expert.

As for him having a fast canter, is it actually too fast? Or does it feel faster than the other horses just because he has a different stride? Is he unbalanced? Is he getting the right lead? I would agree with what everyone else has said about half halts, and as my instructor says the outside rein is your speed rein so just a little squeeze on the outside rein to bring him back a notch.

Also re western trained horses. I think ylwhat you mean to say is that the horse is ridden both western style and English style? The horse I ride is the same. However I can ride him western style and English style within the space of five minutes in my English tack. Putting a western saddle on him will not cue him to perform as a western horse. You as the rider needs to cue him to do that.II'm also a little confused by your terminology - the western lope in Australia is generally slower than a canter, same as the western jog is slower than a trot. So if you have a horse like Leroy who I ride, he could if I wanted to go walk, jog, trot, lope, canter, gallop

 

[carthorse]

I can't help but say how simple my question is... Is there a way to slow my horse down when he's cantering? And if you don't have an answer please don't say anything at all. Thank you.

The answer is also very simple - learn how to ride your horse! But that's not what you want to hear, is it.

 

[Mary Poppins]

My horse is never uncontrollable, but in theory if he were to get a little strong I would sit up deep in the saddle, give some half halts but also keep my leg on to make sure that he keeps going but just to collect the canter and slow down a little. I would also ride some shapes, perhaps some large circles to get his attention and then do some trot, canter transitions to get him listening to me and make sure that he realises that just because I have asked for canter I don't want to go flat out.

If you do have lessons, why not ask your instructor for some homework and exercises you can work on to get him listening to you.