cantering the gaited horse

Improving Canter Quality for the Gaited Horse

Does your gaited horse struggle with a flat four-beat canter or bumpy lateral canter? You’re not alone. I’ve learned a few ways to improve canter quality with my gaited horse.

Here’s my story…

Improving Canter Quality for the Gaited Horse

By Jennifer Klitzke

Dressage training has shown me that the more relaxed my naturally gaited Walking horse is in her back, jaw, poll, and top line, the smoother her gaits are and the better her canter quality gets. That means less lateral canter and four beat canter.

“Don’t practice a poor-quality canter.”

I learned an important lesson from my gaited dressage mentor, Jennie Jackson. She says, “Don’t practice a poor quality canter.” What this means is, as soon as my horse begins to feel flat, hollow, bumpy, bracey, or out of balance in the canter, I need to transition back to a walk, reestablish balance and relaxation and ask again for a quality canter depart to quality canter steps.

This also means I need to recognize the feeling of a quality canter and a poor-quality canter so that I can ask for more of the former and reduce steps of the latter. If I continue riding a poor-quality canter, that’s what I will reinforce to my horse.

If I want a quality canter, I must know firsthand what a quality canter feels like and practice more of it. That’s why taking lessons from a qualified instructor is so important to me. Instruction provides me timely feedback so that I can learn the feeling of quality and the feeling of poor quality so I can better train my horses when I am back at home on my own.

Exercises to help break up a four-beat canter into a truer three-beat canter

Rein back to canter

One of my favorite exercises is establishing a soft and round rein back before a canter depart. When the rein back is soft, not forced, and not rushed, it encourages my mare to bend her hindquarter joints and engage her abdominal muscles which lifts her back. This puts her in a wonderful posture most conducive for a quality canter depart and canter steps.

Gymnastic jumping and ground rails

While I will never become serious about show jumping my naturally gaited horse, I enjoy schooling her over ground rails and small fences for gymnastic purposes and giving Makana variety in her training. I’ve noticed that when we ride over ground poles and small fences, it creates more lift to her canter and brings out a truer three-beat canter.

The other day I tried a new cantering exercise over two ground rails in an L-shape. First I let my horse walk over the rails before we cantered over them. The video below demonstrates the exercise.

Video: Exercises to Break a Lateral or Four-Beat Canter

This is a super fun exercise for the rider and horse.

In addition to improving the quality of canter, I also learned:

  • Balance of my horse
  • My balance on my horse
  • My horse’s rhythm
  • Keeping my horse forward yet relaxed
  • Looking ahead to plan the arc of a turn and line to a rail
  • Getting a feel for how many canter strides to a rail

The L-shape can also be used to school flying changes over the rail by alternating the direction over each pole. We’ll have to give that a try when we begin schooling flying changes.

What are your thoughts? Please reach out send me a message or stay connected by subscribing to the Naturally Gaited youtube channel and joining our community on facebook.com/naturallygaited.