20 Apr The Masterful Student #12

Continuing the trend of my recent theory post about bend, I’m addressing a question from a lesson I taught last week in which the rider was practicing counter canter. Counter canter is a traditional exercise that came about when riders noticed that horses often canter crookedly, carrying their haunches in on one side.

We want the horse learn to canter straight because symmetry is healthier than asymmetry. We want to teach the horse to use itself equally on both sides. It is also easier to ride and maneuver a horse that canters straight instead of crookedly, even if you never want to attempt flying changes.

It can also help a great deal with horses who lean on one rein in the canter, because it gives the rider a reason to use the other rein and get the horse to respond respectfully to it.

Remember, any time when we say “straightening” in dressage, we really are saying let’s make the horse more equal on both sides, more symmetrical in his balance, responses, and abilities.

The tool of counter canter (or to put it another way, intentionally cantering on the wrong lead) shows up in two places in the horse’s training: straightening the basic canter and later for discipline between the changes when learning flying changes or practicing tempi changes. Tempi changes are multiple flying changes on a line – changes every four strides, three strides or two strides for example.

So what are the important elements of counter canter, and how can you begin the exercise?

The simplest proven way to begin the counter canter is to canter a shallow loop off of the wall. So, after cantering around the short side of the ring, you come out of the second corner and ride off the wall as if you were going to begin a diagonal, but then when you are just a couple of meters off of the wall, you gently steer the horse’s shoulders back toward the wall.

Notice that I said you gently steer the horse’s shoulders back towards the wall. The counter canter does not involve any leg yielding. You do not push the horse back towards the wall with your leg, you steer the horse back towards the wall. This is your opportunity to use the outside rein – which helps to straighten the horse.

It is important to note that for the horse to understand that you mean for it to stay on the same lead even though you are going through a mild change of direction, you must hold your seat in the canter lead you are in. You must not change or twist your hips.

It can be helpful to the horse to learn the counter with some bend in the neck, which solidifies the early lesson that the horse is supposed to stay on the same lead, even though his balance is changing from one side to the other as he moves through the loop or turn.  If you try to straighten the horse too much too early, it may jump over in the shoulders to the other lead.

It can also help the green or weak horse to allow it to slightly come onto the forehand in early counter canter, so it is more likely to want to stay on the lead.

If you have a horse who struggles with counter canter at first, you may purposefully not engage the hindquarters very much. If they are not strong enough to hold the engagement in counter canter, they may change leads in front or behind. So, a rider might be slightly lenient in the longitudinal balance for a little while.

Once the horse is more established in the counter canter, you will begin to straighten neck and ask the horse to perform the counter canter in an uphill shape. We never want to stay complacent in the training, we want shepherd the horse to the next phase as soon as they are ready.

If a rider is counter cantering for months on end with a great deal of bend, they may be missing the point of the exercise, which is to straighten the horse. The same goes for counter cantering for too long with a low neck. To improve the horse’s balance and strengthen the hind end, the horse has to learn to counter canter in an uphill shape and engage the hind legs. This is key to preparing for a flying change.

The next phase after the shallow loop is to increase the loop towards the center line. Usually once the horse can make it to center line and back to the original long wall, you can continue across the ring on a diagonal line and counter canter a figure eight around the arena. Once the horse is strong enough to do a counter canter figure eight, you can start trying to do it with little to no bend in the neck.

If you did fall a little on the forehand, it is important when you get back to true canter that you try to pick the horse up, re-engage the hindquarters and get back into an uphill canter.

Once you can make it around the short side of the ring in counter canter, you can stay on the long side and use the help of the wall to straighten the horse. The wall will help you push the horse’s hips back in line with its body, on the side that it has the tendency to carry the hips inwards toward the lead.

For example, if the horse tends to carry the hips to the right, you would go on the right lead in counter canter so the right hips are against the wall and the horse has to try to become straight. The wall is engineered to be a perfectly straight line, so it is a great help to the rider who can use lighter aids to straighten the horse’s body.

So, the first place counter canter is useful is in straightening the baseline canter of the horse, making sure the hips aren’t traveling inwards and helping the horse not to lean on one side or one rein. The second place the counter canter shows up is in the training of the flying changes and tempi flying changes.

Ideally, the horse is not overly bent in one direction as you prepare to change leads. The horse must pass through a phase of total straightness in the neck and body as a preparation for a flying change. Only when the canter is made very straight can the flying changes be considered.

When the rider is straightening the horse’s neck, they are teaching the horse a very important lesson: that a touch of the rein or repositioning of the neck is NOT the aid to switch leads. That is job of the hips and legs.

They are also teaching the horse patience and to allow the rider to control the canter. The horse will have to wait on one lead until the rider gives them the aid to change. They aren’t allowed to change because they felt the balance or direction change.

In the tempi changes, it sometimes happens that horses are very smart and can count or get impatient and guess what the count is. It may be that the horse is not paying attention and you need to stop the changes but you don’t want to stop cantering. You need the horse to wait for you in canter and to come back on the aids.

In this case, you can stop the tempi changes and ride in counter canter, where the horse must wait for your next aid. It’s a very important tool that teaches the horse to be patient in canter, instead of using a downward transition and interrupting the gait, or somehow reprimanding the horse.

The more advanced canter work is difficult both mentally and physically. Our philosophy is to work hard but work calmly. We don’t want the horse to get excited and start leaping around, with legs everywhere when we start flying changes or tempi changes! It may still happen, but then the rider must calm the work down. Counter canter helps us do that. We show the horse again that he can wait in the preparatory phase before the flying change and not guess or stress.