Tag Archives: cantering gaited horse

Dressage for the Gaited Horse

Breaking Pace & Cross Canter Using Trot & Ground Rails

Breaking pace and cross canter

Do you refine pace or cross canter? Likely not. Instead learn ways to break pace and help your gaited horse develop quality smooth gaits and a true canter.

Here’s my story…

Breaking Pace and Cross Canter Using Trot and Ground Rails to Develop Quality Smooth Gaits

By Jennifer Klitzke

Do you have a gaited horse that paces or cross canters? If you’re like most gaited horse owners, you don’t practice improving the quality of the pace and cross canter, right? We work on breaking pace for a smooth gait and replace cross canter with a true three beat canter.

My gaited dressage mentor Jennie Jackson taught me many valuable tips over the years. Among these tips are breaking pace and cross canter by disrupting lateral movement using diagonal gaits like the trot and true canter.

Introducing ground rails to teach trot and canter

A great way to start diagonalizing movement to breaking pace and cross canter is introducing the gaited horse to ground rails to teach trot and correct the canter.

In the video below, I show the progression of how I introduce my naturally gaited horse to a ground rail using trot and use the ground rail to break up her cross canter as she learns true canter. Above all we focused on relaxation, balance, rhythm and forward movement without rushing starting at the walk, then the trot, and then the canter. I teach all of the gaits on cue.

Watch: Breaking Pace & Cross Canter Using Trot & Ground Rails

Steps to introduce ground rails to help break up pace:

  • Introduce the horse to the equipment to encourage relaxation: Introduce the rail(s) and lunge whip gently and gradually so the horse isn’t afraid of them and finds relaxation.
  • Begin at a relaxed walk and increase tempo gradually: Encourage the naturally gaited horse to find relaxation, balance, rhythm and forward movement without rushing. Begin at a relaxed walk. Then cluck and say, “trot” to increase tempo to a trot. If the horse doesn’t trot, say, “trot” cluck and motion the lunge whip. Only escalate the aids if the horse isn’t responding. After a few steps of trot. Stop and praise. Do this a few times until the horse understands trot.
  • Then help the gaited horse settle into a relaxed, balanced, trot with even rhythm and forward movement without rushing. This might take some starts and stops if the horse is explosive. Encourage relaxation, as this is the first element to establishing rhythm.
  • For canter, start with one ground rail and then add a second a canter length apart (6-9 feet). One ground rail can help correct cross canter any time the hind legs are traveling on the wrong lead. When the horse hops over the ground rail they often correct the hind legs to the true canter lead. If the horse gets tense or loses its balance, gently transition the horse back to a walk or trot to re-establish relaxation, balance, rhythm and forwardness before transitioning back up. If you have a round pen, you can set up a rail or two or a rail to a small fence or cross rail.
gaited horse over jump
Free lunging over a jump in a round pen is another way to help the gaited horse develop a quality 3-beat canter.
  • Teach quality gaits on cue: Teach a quality walk, trot and canter on cue over ground rails to build the correct muscles. Don’t let the horse decide its gait, blast off into tension, or travel continually in a hollow ewe neck frame. Teach gaits that build the top line muscles, encourage a deeper step under the body, and gaits that develop relaxation, balance, forwardness without rushing, and even rhythm and tempo.

If you struggle with a lazy four beat canter, uncoordinated cross canter or a tense pacey canter, pace or step pace with your gaited horse, you’re not alone. I have experienced all of these in the training of naturally gaited horses.

Breaking Pace Canter or 4-beat Canter for Quality Canter

In the video below, me and my naturally gaited Tennessee walking horse, Makana show exercises to breaking pace canter and a four-beat canter to improve canter quality. The goal is a relaxed three beat canter with more airtime.

The first exercise uses rein back to bend the hindquarter joints and engage the abdominal muscles to lift her back before transitioning to canter. This positions my horse in the best posture for a depart to a quality canter.

The canter second exercise is SUPER FUN over ground rails. It elevates the canter and breaks up a four-beat canter.

Watch: Exercises to Break a Pacey Lateral Canter or 4-Beat Canter

More Exercises for the Gaited Horse to improve smooth gaits.

I hope this is helpful. Let me know your thoughts by sending a message.

Visit website: NaturallyGaitedHorse.com
Subscribe: Naturally Gaited youtube channel
Follow: facebook.com/naturallygaitedhorse

Dressage Exercises for the Gaited Horse

Rollbacks and the Gaited Horse

 

Rollbacks and the Gaited Horse

Dressage training has helped my naturally gaited Tennessee walking horse with her rhythm, relaxation, connection, impulsion, straightness, and collection. Yet quickness hasn’t been something I have practiced on a regular basis, and it really becomes apparent when we sort cows.

Recently I took my naturally gaited Tennessee walking horse mare Gift of Freedom (Makana) to a Wednesday evening cow sorting league. We are clearly the odd ball in the group among quarter horses that are naturally built for this sport. These horses are highly engaged from behind and can lope, stop, pivot and spring off in a new direction in half a second.

Will my naturally gaited Tennessee walking horse ever be as quick and responsive as the quarter horses? Not likely, but being lowest on the pecking order seems to motivate her. Makana LOVES having something to push around. Each week we get better at moving the cows from one pen to the next in order, and have more clean rounds than DQs.

Watching the riders warm up their quarter horses, I’ve noticed that they often use rollbacks as an exercise of choice, so I began adopting rollbacks into our warm up.

Rollbacks have great benefits. They increase engagement and make her think about quickness and responsiveness. This is helping us in the hole as we attempt to keep the unsequenced cows from sneaking through before their turn.

P.S. As a side note, I show up at sorting league as a cross dresser: my horse wearing Western attire and me wearing  breeches, half chaps, and my riding helmet. I figure if I’m going to be the oddball among all these spur wearin’, shank sportin’ cowboys and cowgirls riding their cowy quarter horses, I might as well go all out!

Video: Rollbacks for the Gaited Horse

(Take it from me, it is easier to ride rollbacks in the security of a Western saddle.)

More Exercises for the Gaited Horse to improve smooth gaits.

I hope this is helpful. Let me know your thoughts by sending a message.

Visit website: NaturallyGaitedHorse.com
Subscribe: Naturally Gaited youtube channel
Follow: facebook.com/naturallygaitedhorse

Dressage for the Gaited Horse

Improve Canter with a Gaited Horse

naturally-gaited-dressage-is-more-than-trot-jennifer-klitzke-canter

Does your naturally gaited horse struggle with a pace canter or cross canter? Exercises over ground rails and small fences can improve canter quality.

Here’s my story…

Improve canter with a gaited horse

By Jennifer Klitzke

Experiencing dressage with my naturally gaited horses proves that relaxation of the mind and body produce smoother gaits, including canter. This 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.” This means as soon as my horse begins to feel flat, hollow, bumpy, braced, or out of balance in the canter, I need to stop cantering and start over from relaxation. That’s when I transition from canter to a walk or halt, reestablish balance and relaxation and ask 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 teach 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. This helps me train my horses with greater progress and success when I am riding on my own.

Introducing canter with a gaited horse

Exercises to break a pace canter or four-beat canter

Below is a cantering exercise over two ground rails in an L-shape. I begin by letting my horse walk over the rails before we cantered over them.

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

In addition to improving the quality of canter, you’ll also learn:

  • Balance of the horse
  • Rider balance on the horse
  • The horse’s rhythm
  • Keeping the 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.

Exercises to improve canter quality

Gymnastic jumping and ground rails

Course of Rails at Rocking R
Showing stadium jumping over rails

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

Video: Cantering a Gaited Horse over Obstacles

Video: Starting a Gaited Horse over Fences

More Exercises for the Gaited Horse to improve smooth gaits.

I hope this is helpful. Let me know your thoughts by sending a message.

Visit website: NaturallyGaitedHorse.com
Subscribe: Naturally Gaited youtube channel
Follow: facebook.com/naturallygaitedhorse

Dressage for the Gaited Horse, Gaited Dressage Shows, Starting a Gaited Horse Over Jumps

Gaited Dressage [and Jumping] at Northwoods

Gaited dressage and jumping at Northwoods

By Jennifer Klitzke

Thanks to the familiar faces, I felt like I was showing among friends at the Northwoods schooling show instead of me, Makana, and tripod.

Northwoods offered their first annual schooling dressage [and hunter] show on May 30, 2015. I took my naturally gaited Walking horse Makana—the only gaited horse/rider entry among 29 trotting horse tests ridden, Intro through First Level.

Nearing the arena I heard someone say my name. I turned to look and a woman introduced herself. We came to know each other through NaturallyGaited.com. I was delighted to connect with her face-to-face.

Then another woman I had met through the Western Dressage Association rode her Norwegian Fjord at her mare’s first dressage show. These women, among the other friendly spectators and competitors, made it feel like I was riding with friends instead of showing solo—me, Makana, and tripod.

Since Makana seems to run out of gas so quickly, I’ve been making a point to do more conditioning with her during our rides at home. It really paid off. We rode both First Level Tests One and Three back-to-back and Makana had enough energy to spare. The tests were held in Northwood’s spacious mirror-lined indoor arena with dust-free rubberized footing.

This show marked the first time Makana and I had ever ridden First Level Test Three which is filled with lots of new challenges: leg yield zig zag at a flatwalk, 10-meter flatwalk circles, counter canter, and simple changes of lead at X through the flatwalk, in addition to the running walk, canter lengthenings, and 15-meter canter circles.

To my amazement Makana scored 70.294% on First Level Test Three and received a respectable score of 65.926% on First Level Test One.

After our rides, Judge Colleen Holden remarked, “That was really fun to watch how you orchestrated all those variations of walk.” She said that we received an “OMG” on our free walk and medium walk because they were the best she had seen all day, and she was very impressed with our transitions, and the quality of our canter. Areas she encouraged us to work on are developing better bend which will improve the overall elegance of our tests.

After the dressage tests were completed, the outdoor arena was set for the hunter course. While I continue to school Makana over ground rails and small jumps at home to improve her canter, it had been a couple years since we entered a hunter course.

The last time we rode a course of ground rails, Makana spooked, refused, and hesitated getting near the strangely colored poles. The Northwoods schooling show promised to be a fun and beginner-friendly event, so I entered Makana in the hunter course over ground rails.

What a terrific course—eleven poles with lots of turns and canter stretches made it feel more like a cross country course. I was so proud of my girl. She confidently cantered the entire course of rails without a spook, refusal, or hesitation! In fact, I was tempted to enter her in the 18″ cross rail course.

Video: Naturally gaited (and barefoot) Walking horse over a hunter course of ground rails

Special thanks to Northwoods Stables for hosting their first annual dressage and hunter schooling show and for accommodating gaited dressage.