 Okay, we're in for round two even though you haven't seen round one because my software I was trying to broadcast to two different to YouTube and Facebook didn't work But anyway, today we're here in the first workshop in an ongoing series on how to conquer the canter And how to get yourself to a place where you're feeling confident, self-assured You've got a nice balance in your horse. Your horse is cantering along with flow and balance and ease How to get there, right? And this is something that's come up. I don't know I've been teaching in training since I was 16 and So that's since like 1994 I think 1994-95 so you can do the math and figure out how old I am Anyway, I the canter is something that comes up quite a lot and sometimes it's issues with confidence, right? So having confidence in the canter sometimes it's issues with getting our horses to balance in the canter Sometimes it's issues with horses bucking at the canter. Sometimes it's horses running off. I don't know whatever it might be Cantering seems to be one of those things that seems to come up quite consistently And I think it's really important that we get to a place where we're able to Cantor successfully confidently and feel assured our horse feels assured that we are going along in balance And in ease. So anyway, I'm going to adjust my camera here So you can see I don't know a little bit more But anyway, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave it in the chat And I will try to address them as we move forward now when cantering when you know confidence is what definitely one of those things that comes up quite regularly at the canter and It's something that can be addressed in Multiple ways and sometimes it's the person's not confidence in the canter Sometimes the horse isn't confidence in the canter. Sometimes it's a combination the combination is probably the most difficult one to work through and that's because if the human doesn't bring the confidence to the situation for the horse it can be quite difficult and then It kind of bounces back and forth and I experienced this years ago. Actually, I I had gotten in a bad accident with the horse I had almost lost my life and I'd been a trainer and teaching about cantering for Many years teach just teaching in general for like 15 20 years at the time or 20 Yeah, 15 20 years at the time I've been teaching teaching these things and then I found myself dealing with fear issues and it was terrible because I knew how my horses felt when I Was confident and comfortable and could help them out at the canter and I had helped Students work through the sort of thing but now after the accident. I was feeling it myself and It was so different because now I was not only Kind of aware of the things that my students have gone through but I was also aware of how I was creating issues in my own horses by being the one that lacked confidence and I watched this happen I had watched students be uncomfortable cantering and create some you know troubles for their horse, but now I was experiencing it and Boy, oh boy. That was a totally different deal when I was experiencing it myself now Adjust my microphone. I'm not sure if you guys are able to hear me quite well here So anyway what I ended up doing myself This is something that for anybody that is struggling with confidence issues This could be so helpful and what it is is finding activities finding things that are going to help you flex your fear muscle Get over get over your confident Confidence problems doing things that you're uncomfortable with off of your horse And what this does is it affords you to work on these things without creating this reciprocal kind of Snowball that happens when you're on the horse and I noticed it so much when I was overcoming my confidence issues because I'd be Nervous and apprehensive about things and then it would create that in my horse Which would make me feel more insecure and then it would create more of that in my horse And it was just a downward spiral and what I ended up doing is It was winter by the time I was kind of healed up And we had a indoor mountain bike park that had ladder bridges And it had balance beams to go on on your bike It had some jumps to go on when you're riding your bike and I got to Practice skills practice balance. So balance would be an important thing, right? We need to be balanced when we canter our horses Core strength it helps me work on core strength because that again That's another thing that comes up when cantering we need to be strong so that we can influence our horses movement We can stay centered stay in control of our own bodies and so it helped me work on that It helped me work on just a multitude of issues off of the horses And then I was able to come to the horses and ride my horses in a way where I was more self-assured more relaxed more Comfortable within my own skin. So I was able to try things out on them and be comfortable with that So when you're not feeling confident on your horse I would really encourage you to find some things that would help you create the confidence that you're looking for on On your horse and then that way when you bring that into the relationship Your horse starts to look you up. They start to kind of go Hey, you know, what do you think of the situation and you go to your horse? Hey, no big deal Let's go. Let's go give it a try the horse starts to feel good about that and it bounces back and forth between you and your horse and Therefore what ends up happening is you start creating the foundation that you guys can kind of springboard off of and it really It's sort of it being like this downward snowball that I was experiencing Myself and I've seen students experience it too. It starts to be this upward climb Where you start to feel a lot more confident a lot more self-assured now Sometimes the rider feels just fine, right? I when I was training horses I was dealing with this all the time so the rider feels just fine But the horse isn't confidence in cantering. Well, then that's that's a different scenario So kind of go about it the same way What were the things that the horse is lacking that they needed? I had a horse one time that he was bucking all the time going into the canter a young horse I had started under saddle and he every time we went into the canter he was bucking and not happy his name was grumpy and He lived totally lived up to his name at that time. It was my fault He really wasn't grumpy because it was just what I was presenting to him and asking him to do He couldn't he couldn't do so he needed confidence. He needed confidence over tarps How does that relate to the canter? It just it was a confidence thing, right? He needed to feel self-assured in himself. He needed strength That was something so that like I talked about my core when I was learning to be more confident I Strength again in the horse as well is so important when you can help develop strength that that makes a huge difference Awareness body awareness just teaching your horse over cavilletti or doing different exercises to Collect and bring them back and then get them to lengthen and open up both on the ground It doesn't always have to be riding Those sorts of things create confidence sometimes even something as simple as going and working cattle I That creates now set it up correct You know and set it up in a way where you're setting your horse up for success But that's something that can create a lot of confidence in your horse because they start to feel like this Yeah, you know these things smell kind of funny and I don't know a whole lot about them But I can control them like I would control another horse. So that creates confidence So creating confidence creating strengthening your horse creating balance balance can be addressed at the walk It can be addressed in the slow paces Oftentimes when we go to cantering what ends up happening is the horse's balance ends up too far on the front end and Really in a canter they should be like 60% of their weight on their hind quarters and 40% of their weight on the high Excuse me on the forehand But when they get too much weight on the front end they start feeling like they've got to get underneath their weight And I don't know if you've ever this is a scenario that we all have probably experienced I'm not gonna say even if because I'm sure you have so if you've if you've tripped or when you've tripped and You trip what you end up doing is you kind of like run your feet forward to get underneath your The upper body because the upper body falls forward So you take your feet forward and you get underneath yourself. So then you can stand upright It's a quickening of your movement to get underneath your center of gravity so that you're able to be in balance. I See this sort of thing happen at the canter all the time the horse's weight is so much on the forehand that they're they're rushing to get underneath themselves and They're trying to play catch up all the time right so they're kind of rushing rushing rushing trying to get underneath their center of balance And then us as a rider it feels horrible because you feel your horse's lack of balance you also feel how your horse is starting to get quicker and quicker and quicker and This sort of thing can actually be addressed without actually even getting into the canter So creating the necessary balance is going to be really important in helping your horse out When you're navigating both in the canter or to and from the canter so that your horse is starting to again build that confidence right we want to be building that confidence and and Balance creates confidence as a rider if we feel balanced we feel secure. We feel confident So why wouldn't it apply to our horses? When we're balanced and when we're feeling secure and when we're feeling okay with ourselves Then what ends up happening is the horse starts looking to us they start going Hey, what do you think up there and we can start to build this relationship where the horse starts feeling comfortable with you? Now let's say you're a person and you've never cantered before and you're a little unsure about it Well, if we look at the Calvary, okay, so the Calvary they had to bring I Mean a whole army, you know troops and troops and troops through the ranks to become a Proficient Calvary man. Well, what did they do? Did they start them on a green young horse? No They didn't so your horse needs to be suitable for you And that means that if you're a green rider if you haven't been doing a ton of cantering or if you're a little nervous about the Canter I would really encourage you to find a local program where you can ride a school master That's exactly what they did in the Calvary They found school master horses that could take these riders and bring them along into trotting into cantering into jumping into Riding big ditches, right? They brought them along Logically on a horse that said hey, come on. I got this. Let's do it. Come on. Let's just do the same but if you're Insecure in yourself and your horse is insecure and now you're both trying to navigate it it's really not a good recipe unless you're willing to take the time necessary and Really go about it slow The trouble is when we start to have bad experiences and this is both in horses and in our own selves When we have bad experiences, we have a tendency of holding on to them and when we hold on to these bad experiences then We now are struggling to we carry that into each ride, right? So then we struggle to get over them and they carry through and they start Manifesting into bigger things they become scarier sometimes as we move forward So if we can avoid the bad experiences and having these moments where we create, you know fear in our horse fear in ourselves Or whatever that might be it is going to set us up for success and really springboard us up Creating the foundation that's necessary to carry us to the next level so Set yourself up for success if you know your horse isn't the right match and you're just learning and your horse is learning Try to seek some help and guidance out either by going on a school master and getting yourself ready for your horse Doing some off the horse exercise is right plus that fear muscle get good at getting yourself into Into scary nerve-wracking situations and knowing that you can work through them This is something that I've helped countless students out with their with their horses even like horses that are spooky and that sort of thing We rehearse right we create rehearsals so that we can practice Working through these situations and coming up on the other end and feel good about it And that would be addressing all of these issues, you know horses spooking We do pretend spooking scenarios right where we chase the horse forward and what do you need to do at that time or Like for cantering we're working up and down hills getting your hips to move and to be able to stay soft in the hip as your horse Opens and closes that angle Trail riding can be super helpful as your horse has to adjust their astride You you learn how to stay soft in your body stay soft in your tone so that you're able to move with them So these are all things that you can do to really set yourself up for success We want as riders to always think proactively Rather than reactively that means we want to be one step ahead of the ball rather than rather than being behind the ball Now in order to be proactive Something that can be really helpful is trying to think of both yourself in yourself and within your horse Having a thermometer and having an emotional thermometer Now the emotional thermometer would be kind of cold or in the blue When you're feeling relaxed and chill and mellow in your horse same thing for him So if his thermometers in the blue he would be pretty relaxed and and okay with things But if your thermometers up here in the red or your horses up here in the red You need to be able to then adjust this situation right adjust to where you are at or your horse is at so that again you can set yourselves up for success and There's going to be days where your horse's thermometers in the red Well, maybe that's not a very good day to be working on the canter Maybe you work on some slow relax things. Maybe you work on forehand control, hind quarter control soft simple nuanced stuff that can Create relaxation in your horse You would like your horse to know that you can bring relaxation to the table for horses their flayed animals and they do tend to be more emotional and if we can start to bring relaxation reassurance comfort into the Relationship well then they start to look us up a little bit more when they get in trouble they start to look at us for the guidance that they need in any given situation and that my friends can be huge in In your own comfort level because when your horse instead of going I'm out of here, you know, and they're they're only in it for themselves if they instead go what do you think? You know, and they're a little nervous Then you just put a little field on the rain and say hey, we got this. It's all right, buddy We're good. We're good and you give them a little rub on the neck that can make I can that can take a situation That's red thermometer, right and bring it down at least into the yellow Maybe down into the blue and if we can start to create that more and more in the relationship You're gonna be able to go anywhere do anything with your horse. It's gonna feel amazing It's gonna feel great because your horse is going to be looking you up They're going to be seeking you out for the success that they need in their own bodies and in their own comfort level So I would encourage you to be thinking about that as you're asking your horse to do various things. So now I Had some questions here that I that were people were having on the canter. So one of them was Mark asked, how do I initiate the canter and this is a great question and this would be something that I guess I Could go on for like a super long time. So I'll try to keep it short and sweet Initiating the canter some things that would be necessary would be being able to get your horse's weight back on your hand quarters Remember, we talked about that 60 40 so 60% of the weight on the hand quarters for the canter 40% on the front end if we get close to 50 50 that's approximately a trot and therefore It's going to feel a little out of balance if we're trying to canter in a 50 50 scenario That means that at the walk and at the trot if we can start to teach the horse to sit and to carry themselves back over Their hand quarters a bit more. It's going to make our When we ask them for the canter It's going to make it a lot easier because what we'll do is we will say get your weight back Get close to 60 40 get close come on more weight on the hand course more weight on the hand quarters And then we'll ask and a canter and it's going to be right there for us Another thing that's going to be really important is getting the correct bend We want our horse to be bent just a little bit in the direction of the lead that we're asking That means they would if I'm going for a left lead I would have a little left flexion that's going to be in their pole so a little left flexion we want a little bit of the loading of the outside hind leg and We want just a slight arc as you get further along and your horse is more confident And you can create the balance and the feeling of the horse being really solidly on your aids You can ask for it straighter and straighter and straighter But initially sometimes it helps to have that little bit of a degree of bend Towards the direction that you're asking for the canter in order to set your sort horse up for success so that they get the correct lead Okay, then we had Kate who was asking about collection at the canter. So now Collection at the canter is going to come from your walk-and-trock collection So you need to have those really good first and then when you go to the canter You're only going to last there for a little bit of time remember collection. It creates or excuse me it needs a lot of carriage a lot of muscle involvement and that's not only the horse's hind quarters They're abdomen their back needs to be really working and then they need to be lifting their sternum So and then they're their neck So there's a lot of pieces and they can fatigue quite easily especially initially when you're trying to create the collection at the canter So I'd encourage you to do as little as possible. Now you've got tools, right? So you've got Cavalletti you've got hills hills can be fantastic Even riding in tall grass can be really helpful to create the movement that you'd like to create the collection in the canter These are all things that can help with that and I definitely know that this is a this is a problem that a lot of people have I would encourage you don't spend a lot of time trying to organize and collect a canter that is already falling apart At that point you need to just take a fresh start and try again Get it right in the preparation so that you don't end up in that really fast out of control canter All right, then we have Mike who said keeping the horse's head up So this is another thing that Again, we need to teach our horses that it's their responsibility This is not something that you're going to do by holding the horses head up when you're holding the horses head first of all you're pulling on a bit or on their nose and Either way that's going to cause them to have to brace and lean into that And you can try an experiment at home with a friend try or try having somebody lean on your hand And as they lean on your hand you're going to find you're going to have to push against them more and more and more and Then when you so you are each pushing against one another, right? Then if you have to remove your hand, you're both going to feel out of balance and unstable This is the same thing that happens with the horse the minute you start pulling on their mouth They have to push against that and counterbalance it the minute they have to counterbalance it guess what you're disrupting their balance the other thing is keep in mind if you're using a bit so if you're not riding off of like a bullseller or or Like a hack-a-moor type setup if you're not riding in a bit list situation And you've got a bit in the horse's mouth you're pulling on their lower jaw If you look at the lower jaw, it's quite long So it makes up a long lever to that TMJ joint the minute you start pulling on that They have to tighten their jaw in order to stay safe, right? Otherwise you're going to pull their mouth open That's why you see people strapping horses mouth shut Well, frankly if you're strapping your horses mouth shut you might want to do a little homework on Staying soft in the reins and teaching your horse some balance and self-carriage Because the minute you're pulling on that lower mandible you are creating tension in the jaw Then you create tension in the pole Then that comes through the nuchal ligament which attaches to our withers Which is going to then cause people have problems with kissing spine well That's what you've probably been pulling on your horses mouth too much or that may be a contributor to it not in all cases so there's there's all of these issues that can be created just by being too heavy on the reins and Again, it's because you're pulling at the end of a very long lever So be aware of that what you would like to do when you tell your horse to keep their head up as you'd like to say Hey elevate your head and then the minute you they do you soften the reins You give the rain to the horse and you say no you carry yourself here now They may only hold it for like a second or two or three if you're really lucky and they may start to drop their head Well, every time they drop their head you need to just say oh no, you know Let me clear this up Please elevate your pole and then you soften the reins again Eventually guess what your horse will start to learn to carry themselves there if you hold the whole time though They're not going to learn self-carriage. They're going to learn how to counterbalance against you Which in turn is going to create a bunch of downstream Problems that may not show up for the next few years, but they will show up So that's something to to keep in mind again working it at the walk in the trot first Creating the dialogue creating the conversation creating the correct response in The beginning pieces in the walk in the trot so that you can carry it forward to the canter But it's so important again to be releasing the pressure and encouraging Self-carriage in your horse rather than holding that contact and then making your your horse have to counterbalance against you You'll see those horses going around in more of like a wheelbarrow type mode where they do have to put more weight on their forehand Which again is disrupting that 60 40 balance 60 percent of the weight on the hindquarters and 40 percent on the forehand And it's disrupting that because you're creating that whole counterbalance scenario So go play with that exercise with a friend and see how that how that works for you And you're going to get a feel for how your horse is having to deal with it But they're also dealing with a big long lever if again, you're not you're not riding with like a bitless bridle and that sort of thing Okay, then we have oh the bucking horse Okay, well that's another long one and then we have speed can roll these are these are long questions So so the bucking horse the bucking horse that can be You know, I can go back to that that grumpy horse that I had for a long time He was bucking every canner transition and I was working with a fellow that was at the temple of the Zenfarm He had done articles and big magazines and it was really a brilliant Rider and teacher and we worked on the canner and canner to canner We were not getting the canner done without the bucking. It was driving me crazy I was feeling upset about it. My horse was feeling upset about it and then I had help from a gal by the name of Lee Smith and she Really said to me you've got to get these things taken care of way earlier on So I had to work on things like getting him confident getting him confident. Yeah Working on the canter. We actually worked over a tarps. I know it sounds silly, but we did a ton of tarp work We didn't work with bags. He was petrified of bags. How does that relate to the canter? Well, it was a confidence issue. Another thing I had to work on was he was young. He was a young thoroughbred I'd started on under saddle. He wasn't ready to balance for the canter So bucking was showing up because he was saying hey look How am I supposed to do this with you on my back? He was frustrated So it was an expression of where he was at his lack of confidence his lack of balance So I had to create strength and to do hill work. I had to do Cavaletti work So there were all these pieces that needed to be into play before I actually Cantered But then once we started cantering guess what it was really really nice It was really good because I wasn't working on the canter I was working on all of the prerequisites that were needed before we actually cantered and It's super cool when you get it right in the preparation because when you get it right in the preparation whatever it is you're about to do it's like right there for you and That's that's so nice because guess what you're setting yourself up for success most importantly You're setting your horse up for success And then you're creating that foundation where you guys are both feeling like cool. I can do anything I can do this. I got this and then you don't create these issues that now You know now you've got a problem and now you've got this hump that you've got to get over before you can Move over and progress. So really the preparation and setting yourself in your horse up for success is so important Hind quarter control would be really important for that bucking horse being sure that you're able to get down to the hind legs That's something that can be an issue a horse You know another thing would be being in front of the leg Oftentimes when horses buck it's a sign of them not being in front of the leg So that would be another thing I'd be working on and again to set the lock in the trot initially getting it really good In the pieces before the canter so that once you're in the canter is just right there for you now When they're when they're bucking in there they're kicking against your leg Sometimes it could be helpful to be working on that turn on the forehand getting them off their leg off your leg Before you go in into the canter go into the trot so that you're working on some Pieces can kind of putting it together in a flow So you're saying a little turn on the forehand Then you're sending them forward out of that to the trot getting them forward off of your leg And now when you start approaching the canter, it's it's not a big deal Let's see here. I'm not thinking of anything else right now off the top of my head for that and then we have speed control At the canter so speed control again kind of going back to that whole idea of if you trip if you trip in Your center of balance comes forward You're going to need to speed your feet up to get underneath your center of balance Oftentimes when horses are too fast or rushing at the canter it comes down to a lack of balance and I know I keep saying go back but a Lot of times if you try addressing these things at the canter You create bad patterns bad habits in both yourself and your horse that are not really Creating a foundation that you can start to propel yourself forward off of So I would encourage you if you've got some speed issues That are going on at the canter try to address them Before you actually get to the canter help your horse find balance there create a conversation Around the idea of balance so that it's a conversation then that you've had multiple times And you've addressed it from kind of different angles so that when you get to the canter you can say Okay, remember we talked about you know the balance like this or remember when we talked about the balance like this Then your horse goes. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I get it. Okay balance here and then they're going to feel comfortable and confident in themselves Okay, so if I don't see anybody looks like we've got a few people here Welcome everybody. So um So if I don't see any questions in the comments here, I think I'm going to I'm going to call it good. This is the first In a series of workshop videos that we're doing in conquering the canter And I also have a web class that's going on right now that you can sign up for And it goes into your three steps to mastering the canter So that would be something I'll probably throw in the comments there and and you can check that out And anyway, I appreciate you joining in and until next time Happy riding