Collecting TC's Canter

After the show, things with TC have been really great. The two days of clicker training the connection leading up to it really made a huge difference and changed the way I was riding it.

My main goal with the connection moving forward is to get the feeling that TC is about to stretch down into a stretchy trot even in the most collected work. So clicking for that and then riding with that in mind has been huge.

As we glance at 1-3 for the next show (I want to ride it at least once I think, we'll see, no decisions have been made), I also have some of Second level in mind too. TC is schooling all of the movements from Second fairly easily, though the quality of the gaits/basics is still not quite there, of course. The big issue, other than probably the medium gaits (which would be fine, they'd just be 6s) is the collected canter.

Still not quite collected enough for Second, but getting there!

To work on the collected canter, Tanya has basically just had me half halt and then press him out of it. There's no fancy exercises over here. I've been basically doing the same thing, though doing the lengthened canter first, and then over-collecting him, then going back to his normal working canter.

My main goals/things I'm thinking about in the collected canter are as follows:

Don't stay in it for so long that he wants to break
I don't want TC to dread the half halt coming into the collected canter, nor do I want him to think that the half halt will ever mean to break from canter. So we hold it for maybe 3/4 of a 15m circle at most, then leave, then come back. Eventually we'll be doing this in and out of pirouette canter too. Never staying in it for longer than he can easily do, just pushing a tiny bit at a time. I want a super reliable collected canter, which will lead to a super reliable pirouette canter, and then I won't have a horse who halts in pirouettes like the last one so wanted to do...


Really lift his withers with the slingshot
It's easy to ride him downhill in the "collected" canter and have him slow down by pressing his front feet downward into the ground vs having him actually lower the hind quarters and bend his hocks in the stance phase of the gait. So my way of combating this is to have the slingshot be the main aid for collecting him rather than my reins. That seems like a no duh kind of thing, but it's super easy to pull on the reins when asking a horse to collect. Not the aid I want him to do it by.


Keep him out to the bridle
TC's go-to move is to throw his neck in my face. Scary thing? Neck in face. Half halt? Neck in face. New movement? Neck in face. Most of training TC is making sure that his neck is not in my face. One way I've been making sure of this is assigning rein lengths for each gait. Trot and canter are at 2 notches (trot is at the notch, canter in front of it), walk is at 3. If I find myself shortening the reins more than that, or having my hands in my lap, then I'm losing him.

Keeping him up and out to the contact just like this!

If he lightens, make sure it's not dead lightness
Collected gaits mean the horse gets lighter in the bridle not because of the connection as much as the lowering of the hindquarters. If he gets lighter but I feel like his neck is in my face (see above) and/or that he's behind the bit, this is bad. But if he gets lighter but I can put my leg on and he'll reach for the bit, this is good lightness.


The moment he gets stuck/behind my leg, pop him out of it
The collected canter HAS to be in front of my leg. This is a path I walked down with Rico and don't want to repeat it. It makes everything harder when the collected canter gets lethargic. I want him to think that every time we're in the collected canter, he needs to be ready to blast out of it. That kind of ability takes time, horses get quite stuck in the collection when they can't push out. I think of it as the difference between a squat and a jump squat. I want jump squats out of this horse (not literally pls).


Make sure my seat continues to say canter
One of the things that I accidentally did when working at the canter with Rico was broke my canter to trot transition. Tanya told me that with TC, he should only trot when I drop my thigh a bit and stop my seat from cantering. As long as my seat says canter, he needs to canter. So I can't lie to him by accidentally dropping him and then getting after him for not continuing to canter, because then I won't have a canter to trot transition.

He's coming along so nicely :) 

Last week I had a really great time doing this, as I really felt like I accessed a more collected canter than I had previously thought TC could do. There was this feeling in Rico's pirouette canter where I felt like I could let go of the whoa aids and he'd just stay on the spot with my seat (now the slingshot) alone. I got that same feeling on TC (though less on the spot obviously) without him going dead in the contact or throwing his neck back at me. It was pretty magical! I think it's time to apply some clicker training to this to make him real eager to collect.