Canter, canter, walk...walk between 3 to 5 steps, canter! Sounds simple enough! However the reality of the so called simple change is quite different and we have all seen the common mistakes people make that take that harmonious 8 souring to a undesirable 4!
The first thing is the quality of the canter, not just immediately before the transition, but the general impulsion, attitude, and self carriage of the collected canter.
"Canter in such a way that the horse does not speed up when you release the reins" N.Oliveira (1998, 80f).
A horse that is engaged in self-carriage, putting weight on his hind legs, and cantering "up a hill" will have a lot less difficulty carrying out a smooth simple change than a horse that is plopping around with all his weight in the shoulders. First, you must have a horse that balances himself in the trot, as a horse that is downhill in the trot, will only be more so in the canter!
"One must not canter the horse until he carries himself well in the trot" N.Oliveira (1998, 81).
From there, we need to teach the horse to relax the canter, which in turn will enable us to make relaxed transitions.
"Breathe deeply and calmly in the canter. Expand your rib cage" N.Oliveira (1998, 79).
Only when we are ourselves are relaxed will the horse be better able to recognise our aids and clearly understand what we mean! One common fault that we must think about, we aka me, is not to rock our body in the canter, but allow our hips to move with the flow of the horse.
"The upper body should not move back and forth in the canter. Instead, the lumbar back should become supple" N.Oliveira (1998, 79).
Unless our hip is relaxed and moving with the horse, we will block down through our inside seat-bone and end up with abrupt and stiff transitions. Once we feel ourselves and our horse relax into the canter, we can work on the canter departure, even from trot, as this will help create jump and impulsion within the canter itself.
"Don't be content with just any canter depart. Improving the canter depart will improve the quality of the canter" N.Oliveira (1998, 79).
Dressage Riding Technique master, Richard Weis, says that a good downward transition is established by controlling the speed. "All good transitions require the ability to bring the speed you're coming from as close as possible to the speed you’re going to," says Richard. "So in the case of canter-walk, the prerequisite is to be able to canter at walk speed. Any requirement to change speed in the transition itself will inevitably cause the horse to brake with its front legs - another way of saying ‘tip on the forehand’. This will cause the first stride of walk to be unbalanced, abrupt or rushing."
However, Richard knows that to manage a clean three beat canter at walk speed is quite difficult, so it is lucky the horse is not asked to sustain it. "It is only required for a stride or two before the transition. Sometimes it’s good to practice on a slight uphill slope until the horse gets the idea. That would only be done after lots of transitions in short bursts to collected canter and forward again so the horse learns to maintain a forward desire whilst slowing down."
Most horses can be seen negotiating canter-walk very effectively in what Richard calls the ‘stall and drop’ style, as he often sees horses canter up the paddock for a feed, slow to a lumbering canter and drop to walk a stride or two before the feed bin. "That’s a good example of what we don’t want," he said. "The safest thought to keep in mind during the process of preparing for and executing any downward transition is ‘could I just as easily ride forward out of any stride (for upward transitions - from any stride could I just as easily slow down). If the answer is yes, the horse is in a workable balance. If the answer is ‘no’, it is not time to try the transition at that moment."
Thus the canter must be slowed down to almost walk rhythm, with the ability to still just keep the horse forward, which will allow the horse to flow from one gait into the next. This of course means we must slow the canter down, but when doing so we must remember a very important inverse relationship!
"The more the horse slows down the canter, the more impulsion he needs" N.Oliveira (1998, 80).
The third thing you need, after a well balanced canter, and impulsion, is straightness!
"In order to keep the horse straight, use your hands as little as possible in the canter" N.Oliveira (1998, 83).
This again requires a relaxed seat that is steady, balanced and QUIET in the saddle, and a horse that is on the aids, and able to carry himself.
"Maintain the seat in the canter. - That's all. The less the rider moves, the better cadenced the horse is in the canter."
N.Oliveira (1998, 79)
If you do need to use the rein, it should be in an uphill and forward direction, to keep the uphill energy, causing a change in balance of the horses hind legs and making it easier for him to slow the rhythm.
"Sometimes it is helpful to raise the hands a little in order to slow the canter down and make the horse sit"
N.Oliveira (1998, 83).
Trainer and rider Joao Moreira believes the key to a good simple change lies in the quality of both the downward and upward transitions, and says these rely on the existence of two major elements. "The horse and rider must have established the correct rhythm and balance, in order to produce smooth, well executed transitions," says Joao.
Having focused on what we need from our horse we then come to rider errors, which as with most elements of dressage, there are many obvious ones, that we all fall prey to! "As it is so difficult to get a canter stride up hill, three beat, and at walk speed, many riders ask the transition when they are travelling a bit fast," Joao explained. "Riders learn to rigidify their back and suddenly drop their weight. That has the effect of causing the horse to lock its back and plop into the ground. The horse is forced to slow down abruptly and the first walk strides are awkward and clumsy. Just like those in the paddock at feed time."
For Richard the transitions that excite him the most are those where you think to yourself, if I’d blinked I’d have missed it. "Canter morphs to walk and walk morphs to canter, as if nothing at all happened," he said. "The rider will not feel any necessity to drop their weight if they have ridden the canter uphill to walk speed."
To then establish a quality three to five strides of walk, Richard suggests that changing the seat to walk pattern will be all that is required. "Keep the walk collected, and just pop back to canter." The golden rule is "The simple change is a test of collection not a test of brakes and accelerator."
I decided that to give more body to my training articles, I would incorporate the advice of top dresssage judges, so we can also learn what it is they are looking for in competition.
According to O-judge Maribel Alonso the most common and most obvious mistake judges see in the simple change is the horse falling into trot before he reaches the walk. "For some amateur riders it is not always clear to them, or the judges, that the simple change is a transition from canter to walk, ( 3-5 steps of walk ideally), then back into canter," Alonso explained. "However, canter to walk is a difficult transition, as the horse needs to be slightly collected to make a good transition directly to the walk. The horse must also remain relaxed, maintaining a good rhythm both in canter and in walk, as well as keeping the straightness. Riders therefore have to use effective half halts to maintain their horse's ability to stay active and listening. All these elements need to be there at the moment of the transition, in order to avoid a loss of balance as the horse goes into the walk."
Awarding low marks for the simple change in many instances, Maribel is typically forced to lower the marks for a long list of reasons. "Either, the horse dived into walk, trotted all the way through, the horse was not straight into the downward transition or the upward one, the horse was not really through and therefore was not relaxed in the neck or in the body, the horse took the wrong canter lead after walk, the horse was behind the bit, against the bit, showed an unclear rhythm in walk, was resisting or reluctant to go forward into canter. All these examples belong to the 4's and less."
With all these things to avoid, there are also many elements to the simple change which can help us reach those top marks. "Top marks will be awarded for a good lively, clear and active canter, with good self carriage, showing relaxation of the body and back," said Maribel. "Straightness is also important, as is the degree of collection, so the horse is able to respond to the half-halt, while remaining in balance, flowing into a relaxed clear and active walk, and then returning smoothly into an uphill canter, without diving and while keeping the vertical. Judges are really looking for a smooth, straight, uphill transition that fluently goes from an active clear canter into an active clear walk, and back into an uphill canter, without losing the straightness and balance. The simple change should be free of tension, with good self-carriage and some degree of collection."
I wondered then if any elements can be overlooked and Maribel advises that if the rider has fulfilled the requirements above, then a judge can live with more walk steps than the required number. "Sometimes it is better to give the young horse or rider a chance to take a little bit more time and perform a more fluent transition, than a rough one lacking preparation," she said.
Finally, once you have this "simple change" down pat, you can move onto the even more difficult one...
"When the horse executes the transitions from canter to walk calmly and strikes off equally well anywhere in the arena, he is ready for the flying changes" N.Oliveira (1998, 87).
by Sarah Warne for Eurodressage
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