Re: RC: Efficient gaits question

[Farafix@aol.com]

Lif writes:

<< I have come
 to think that part of that might be because I do almost all my training
 at the trot.  So now I am thinking about doing a lot more training at
 the canter (lope) to see how that goes.  Maybe if I am doing this with
 one of the horses that seems to prefer the canter anyway, I can get a >>

A couple of yrs ago I had an interesting experience with my mare, who prefers 
to trot.  I got a new dressage instructor out, & one of my (many) conerns was 
that Kadance had a very stiff canter; she also had a pokey walk (I wanted a 
faster walk for steep uphills & a canter to go faster on nice level footing). 
 The instructor pointed out that the walk & canter were related.  Stiff back 
muscles would impede both gaits.  She surmised that since I had worked for 
several yrs on a very forward, extended trot, that Kadance had learned to 
stiffen her back to get all the trot energy to go forward.  I had not allowed 
her to canter as I brought her along, as I followed the conventional wisdom 
that trotting was better because 2 feet took the concussion.
We worked on the canter (some of which was lots of walking on the trail to 
loosen up her back).  Her canter is better, her downhill is much better now, 
too.  She no longer takes just the right lead, but will alternate, even doing 
flying lead changes when she gets tired of one lead.
Her son likes to canter better, & I allowed him to do some cantering as I 
brought him along.  He did have to learn to do an extended trot as his 
natural inclination was a nice bouncy dressage trot.  He learned to lower his 
head to get the energy going forward (interesting to watch a youngster play 
around with their head carriage out on the trail to get a faster trot going 
to keep up with mom).  Tempo has a wonderful canter to ride, nice break to 
all that posting.  
Today, Tempo canters better than his mom, but I think he had a better natural 
canter which I encouraged.  Kadance still prefers to trot & can still trot 
faster than Tempo, but her canter is much improved.  Tempo can really scoot 
downhill, I think because getting his butt under him comes easily, & not 
overly forcing the trot has helped him keep his back loose enough (really, 
his stomach muscles strong enough) to collect going downhill.
The horses often seem to be able to move faster at a lower heart rate (on 
level ground) at a canter, than at a trot.
Switching leads is important.
Building the horse up thru long, slow, conditioning to do the cantering is 
also very important (IMHO!).

Nancy
Md


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