This was a question I heard a coach ask a rider recently. Good coach, good rider, good horse, good question.
Through the chapters of my horsemanship, I’ve rebuilt my safety line with horses. I decided that the canter I want to ride is the canter I see on the lunge line. Once I truly embodied that standard, I haven’t looked back. Once a horse comes out to work and lunges nicely I know I can replicate the same canter under saddle.
So when am I going to canter? When I consistently see a forward, balanced canter on the lunge line it’s time to replicate this under saddle. To me that means ride circles like we practiced on the line. Move from walk, to trot, to canter – just like we did on the lunge line. Keep inside bend. Like we practiced. It’s all the same but I’m on the horses back now.
I am predictable to my horses. They know the job and when they can do it they do it. If they have questions we get to break it down and talk about it. Although I can get great canters both on and off the lunge line that doesn’t mean the questions stop. Developing collection thorough rein contact comes with another suit of questions. Because we have shored up the more basic safety questions on the lunge line I feel confident progressing the training. To me ground work and ridden work go together, this adds to our safety plan and the predictability.
When I was a horse crazy teen I would say cantering is the fun part. But now a horse crazy adult sees the beauty in building relationship with horses so now the conversations that gets to the canter is the fun part and the canter is the icing on the cake.
Establishing a solid foundation of groundwork to me includes: manners at feeding, manners when leading, manners when going over obstacles and manners when lunging. The end goal is for all of my horses to do these things like it’s no big deal and they know the drill. It can take months to make this a reality. That ok, these are all preflight tests that insure safety all the time.
