Canter pirouettes, canter half pass, canter transitions; they all have a very vital component in common: the ability to collect the canter. How many times have we seen a rider fly into a pirouette and then haul the horse around without showing any degree of sit or collection.
Why isn’t my horse crossing in the canter half pass, that looks more like a staggered diagonal? Why when I go from canter to walk do I feel like I just plop into a puddle and my horse comes off the contact? Typically the answer is that the horse is not responding to your aid to collect the canter, or, you lack the balance and/or suppleness and straightness, in order for you horse to achieve collected canter.
In a cadenced canter we must feel that the horse engages his hind legs, that the canter is from back to front. Collected canter though looks so easy when the top riders do it. It’s as if they just sort of sit a bit deeper and the horse just canters on the spot, engaged and up in front. When the not so good riders do it, the horse is pulled in short in the neck, the rider's hands, arms and upper body become rigid, their legs clamp on, and the horse canters machine like in a forced state of false collection, which is in fact generated by a contraction through the horses body.
What is the difference between the two? Well, of course one is the product of good training and the correct use of aids, and the rider has therefore allowed the horse to find his balance, and also establish straightness. Firstly, a rider remembers in order to create the balance for a canter from back to front, and not the other way around! “We must slow the canter by the waist, not by the hands,” Nuno Oliveira said.
The first thing is teaching the horse to slow and engage the canter with the use of the riders seat and waist, and not by pulling on the reins.
The ability to ask the horse to collect the canter without pulling on the reins is of course the product of good training and the correct use of aids, but their are other vital components that must be in place to achieve a good collected canter. “The qualities of a good canter: round with impulsion, straight, cadenced, light," said Oliveira.
Often we see riders that have their horses round (sometimes a little too round even) and with impulsion, but the key ingredient that is often left out is straightness. Straightness in dressage implies that the hind leg is following in the track of the fore leg on the same side, and that each hind leg bears equal weight. Establishing straightness at the canter is a tricky concept to feel, and often we see riders bounding down the centreline with their horse's quarters swinging from side to side like the excited tail of a labrador. Riders think if they bend their horse, they will make him straight, but often they overdo the bend, and smother the inside shoulder and force the quarters to swing.
“For a horse to have good bascule (uphill rocking motion) in the canter, the horse needs to be straight," Oliveira explained. Therefore avoid bending him too much. It is the outside rein that keeps the horse straight by placing the shoulders in front of the haunches. Often we use too much bend in the canter, or not enough bend, and finding the middle is through feel and practice. Riders often use too much inside rein, and Nuno suggested that “using too much inside rein in the canter makes the horse brace to the inside."
So if you have a horse that rushes in the canter or wants to change his speed and not come back and collect when you ask, hauling on the reins or pulling his head to the inside is not the solution. Giving support and balance to the canter is, Oliveira says it can be achieved via the following.
1. Bring the outside shoulder back and by using an upward movement of the wrist (to act upwards the hand doesn’t necessarily need to be moving, it is a question of placing the wrist)
2. By playing with the inside rein, just as if you held a flower in your hand. It is necessary for the inside rein to be in a loop for short moments.
By slightly lifting the outside rein while bringing the outside shoulder back and by using the movement of the waist (waist forward and torso erect), we can send the weight to the back (on the haunches). However the head of the horse must remain straight,, so in the left canter the head must not turn to the right.
This is the art of dressage: creating the sphere that teaches the horse that as his rider breathes deep into their stomach, allows freedom through their waist, and gently teasing the inside rein, that he has the strength to sit underneath himself, and the freedom in front to allow the brilliance to come from the engaged hind legs, through, even and straight and channel this energy up and out the front door.
by Sarah Warne