Walk to Canter Transitions (Hannah and Daisy)

So your horse has trouble with its transitions between different gates. Maybe it trots into a canter or even pops a buck.... What now? Why does it happen? There are many reasons a horse might be performing bad transitions unbalanced, they don't know how to, a health problem, or they are just being naughty.

If your horse is unbalanced, this will cause them to have issues adjusting their speed. If your horse’s head is tilted to the outside of the circle you are tracking, its shoulder has dropped and its spine would be arcing opposite of the circle. This also causes their rib cage to be thrown into the circle with will cause an imbalance of the hips and rump. Imagine trying to get your horse to move from a walk to a canter in this way. What would happen? You could possibly have a horrible transition. It could invlose trotting, some sass, or the horse could, and likely would, pick up the wrong lead.

A horse must be balanced in order to perform transitions between gates properly with little visible effort. If the horse’s nose is tilted in, its neck is level with their withers, and its body is properly positioned and rounded underneath itself.

If not balancing properly isn't your issue, ask yourself this: Does your horse know how to pick up the proper lead and do smooth transitions? If your horse is very green, you have to teach the horse to work into smooth transitions. First, instruct them to move up into motion off your leg. You can start from a standstill to a walk and then transition from a walk to a trot. In order to transition into a canter, you have to position the horse's body to help them pick up the correct lead. To pick out the left lead you would tract left on a circle and push their hip in. You elevate the shoulders and press your outside leg on their ribcage. They might trot up into the canter or even take the wrong lead. To teach a horse to move smooth into a transition you have to be able to feel their body and help them when they don't understand. There are a couple different ways to teach a horse to move up into a canter and it really depends on how you ride and what your trainer prefers.

If your horse knows how to do transitions properly but hasn’t been, there is something else going on. Just like humans, their spine can get out of alignment. Call the chiropractor and have your horse realigned. Sometimes your horse could have a vertebrae out of line or its hicks could be tight. Your horse might have an injury or lack the muscle structure to move into a canter properly. It’s always crucial to keep an eye on your horse’s health and their body in order to understand what maneuvers it can properly do.

Sometimes your horse is fine, knows how to do transitions, but yet it won’t move from a walk to a canter properly. This could be an attitude issue. Horses can have bad days too and sometimes they get lazy. If a young kid is riding a well trained horse, sometimes the horse takes advantage of the kid. They get lazy and start to find the kid’s weaknesses whether it’s knowledge, strength, or experience. atch this video below of a well trained horse called Daisy “being lazy” as she moves from a walk to a canter. She has been used as a child’s show horse and has started to take advantage of her young rider’s lack of knowledge.

You can see that the horse makes a beautiful smooth transition from a walk to a canter when tracking left. She is willing and moves off the rider’s leg with little to no complaint. When the mare moves from a walk to a canter to the right she breaks into a trot. She also rings her tail and the rider has to use a lot of leg in order to more her up into the canter. The mare is used to getting away with trotting into the canter and performing sloppy transition. This mare isn't bad or untalented, she's just been able to decide what happens do to having a younger rider.