It’s funny how often the simplest things can bring us the biggest successes in life.
This is no different when it comes to training a standardbred to canter.
By taking a minute to step back and look at the ‘big picture’ of standardbred retraining on the whole, you’ll unlock some powerful strategies you can use to teach your standardbred to canter: even if you’re not managing to get out and ride your horse often, or are lacking in confidence (don’t worry – we’ve got you!)
In this article we’ll focus on 3 strategies you can start to think about when you’re ready to teach your standardbred to canter.
Although simple, these ‘little details’ are often overlooked by many riders, which is why we feel the need to highlight them… when used consciously, they can be a real game-changer in terms of how quickly and comfortably your standardbred learns to canter and the quality of this gait.
1. Develop your standardbred’s strength and conditioning.
The first step towards teaching a standardbred to canter is to ensure that the horse is feeling good and comfortable moving their body in new ways.
As mentioned in the clip below, taken from our Standardbred Body & Mind Workshop, an ex-harness racehorse’s body will go through a lot of changes as they recondition into a riding mount:
Without steady rehabilitation, a standardbred will struggle to support the weight of a rider, balance within smaller riding spaces and be able coordinate themselves in new gait patterns.
As a starting point before you commence standardbred canter training, we recommend you get a qualified equine bodyworker to assess your horse.
An equine biomechanics professional will be able to diagnose any issues, provide treatment and set out a tailored rehabilitation plan to address your standardbred’s unique needs.
From this point, you can begin some at-home exercises to help your standardbred to improve their general strength, suppleness, stability and fitness.
If you’re not sure where to start with this, we have included a whole bunch of simple (yet super effective) strength and conditioning exercises in Week 2 of our Standardbred Groundwork Workshop.
You can learn more by clicking here.
2. Give your standardbred lots of practice cantering
The old saying “practice makes perfect” isn’t just for us humans.
When training a standardbred to canter it’s important to remember that this is an entirely new way for your horse to move their body.
Groundwork training allows your standardbred time to become familiar with how the sensation of cantering feels and to learn to coordinate their legs.
The other benefit to training a standardbred to canter on the ground is that your horse experiences no additional stresses, which can come from having a rider aboard.
When you’re mounted and making subtle little shifts in weight from side to side, or leaning forward or back (as we all do – after all, we’re not robots!), this can work against the natural flow of the horse’s movement.
A green standardbred simply won’t have the natural sense of balance and stability to be able to perform a new task like learning to canter and compensate for a rider’s movement in the saddle at the same time. This often leads to the horse falling back into the trot, or pace.
To reduce adding unnecessary pressure on your standardbred, you should give your horse time and practice learning how to canter without you aboard. (It’s amazing how much benefit you’ll see from this simple strategy!)
Once your standardbred is cantering nicely, has established an independent sense of balance and understands your cues, you can then jump on and put all of the puzzle pieces together as a partnership.
3. Avoid one-sidedness by training your standardbred to canter in both directions
One of the common challenges riders face when they’re teaching a standardbred to canter is that the horse will often be quite natural cantering in one direction, but really struggle in the other.
This can become an ongoing problem and a real barrier to success (and frustration) you may face, if your standardbred can’t quite master that ‘bad leg’ and you’re keen to get out there and dabble in performance disciplines.
When we speak to standardbred owners who have very one-sided riding horses, we often find that there’s limited work being done on the non-preferred leg. This is because their standardbreds simply can’t canter more than a stride or two under saddle in this direction.
If this sounds familiar, we recommend you train your standardbred to canter by riding the canter as part of your workouts on your horse’s natural lead and then making sure you’re also giving your horse an opportunity to chalk up some miles and get some practice at cantering in the other direction, via groundwork.
This ensures not only that your standardbred gets all of the benefits of practicing canter we’ve mentioned above, but that your horse’s body develops muscles and longitudinal suppleness evenly on both sides of their body.
If you only practice cantering a standardbred in the one direction because the other is too difficult, then your horse will never really get the chance to improve this.
Steps for addressing standardbred canter one-sidedness in a practical way:
1. work your standardbred through its normal warm up riding routine
2. move into canter on the horse’s established leg
3. jump off and clip on a lunge rope/head into the roundyard to let your horse practice cantering on their non-preferred rein without you mounted
4. get back on the horse and finish your workout under saddle.
This ‘integrated’ (combining ridden and groundwork training) approach to training a standardbred to canter can have some really powerful results.
We’ve been working professionally as dedicated standardbred retrainers for over a decade and have learned many things about teaching a standardbred to canter in this time (as well as addressing other common standardbred retraining challenges and quirks!)
“How do I teach my standardbred to canter’ is one of the most common questions to hit our inbox and so we’ve put together a special standardbred canter training mini course jam-packed with helpful tips, exercises and perspectives to keep in mind if you’re ready to train your standardbred to canter.
So if you’re feeling overwhelmed or unsure where to start with all this standardbred canter training stuff, you can cut the confusion completely from your workouts by signing up and following our simple and effective methods:
(Plus, at just $29 it’s super affordable and fantastic value!)
You can learn more and get started by clicking here
