The Dressage Basics with Clemens Dierks Part 4 – The Canter

Canter is one of those tricky paces, a little bit like walk. The horse can easily block in the back and get the pace tangled up, losing the sequence. Just as some horses show a lateral walk, some go four beat in the canter.

The four beat canter mostly comes about from the horse not stepping through the rein and going forward, the activity is inadequate in the hindquarters. Some horses start to have a lateral canter. That again is created through not going forward, and also blocking in the back and lack of activity and collection in the hindquarters. Even though this type of horse can produce enough to make a flying change, as it is a lateral movement, I am not impressed by it.

I think in canter you really must build up the muscles over the back to make it possible for the horse to stay round, to come up in the back, to arch the back, to carry themselves. Once again, it is the same recipe, you do this with transitions, activity within the paces – but always keep the horse in front of you. Some horses find an escape and suddenly canter very short , and then you, the rider, are stuck, the horse is not cantering out.

You must always have the horse in front of the aids, moving away from the aids, never into or against the aids. I see many horses, ridden by riders who think their horse is collected, but what the horse really does is to escape the collection by rolling themselves up. This type of horse usually goes behind the vertical, rolls up like a little round ball, and goes up and down. The length of stride is reduced because the horse is not in front of the rider’s aids, and they are losing engagement behind.

I see it many times in preparation for pirouettes or within pirouettes. The hind legs don’t separate any more, they are stuck together, and the horse goes more up and down rather than actually making a proper canter stride which can be maintained. The rider finds it difficult to come out of the pirouette when they have completed the movement.

Canter is a difficult gait. Some horses are naturally more talented for canter and in exercises like flying changes, the quality of the flying change depends on the quality of the canter; if you have a good canter stride, you normally have a good flying change. The flying change has to have the most expression of stride, as it must go out in front and still be engaged behind.

The collected canter must have activity and engagement. The clarity of the beat in canter is really very important – three beat. The horse must accept taking the weight more onto the hind leg, rather than trying to escape it.

The canter must cover ground, the forward movement and the horse’s head must be steady. You see many horses bob their neck up and down in canter, which you don’t see in trot.

The canter for the horse is a natural movement, like walk, and you cannot restrict that movement or go against it. It comes back to the basics again, going through, allowing the half halt to flow through the body. Whatever goes against your hand will never produce quality movement.

You see riders who try to ride pirouettes pulling the horse in. I like to train them to collect the horse properly before the pirouette, to prepare for it and to be able to give within the pirouette to allow it to happen. Not to hold and pull and make the reins tighter.

I like to start the pirouette smaller and then ride more forward within it. In collected canter you are looking for more engagement, activity, with the horse a bit shorter.

It is the same as when we discussed trot, the horse must come up a little bit more in front, more up and carry himself forward in the movement. But again, some riders ride as if they permanently want to ride pirouette canter.

In any pace, it doesn’t matter what pace it is, you have variations of collection. In trot, passage is a collected trot in principle, in canter, there are different variations for different exercises. For example: flying changes are in a more forward collected canter, a normal collected canter can still cover a lovely amount of ground, a canter pirouette is a collected canter but it’s a totally different collection.

Each pace within itself has different variations for different exercises. There’s not just one collected canter otherwise you would do everything the same, and it cannot be done like that. In extended canter, you just look for the most possible ground cover and length of stride.

For a good extended canter, the horse does a nice uphill canter on the bit, going with a lot of impulsion forward. Going into, and out of, extended canter is not hard, but many riders bring the horse back with the reins instead of driving aids and seat. This problem occurs mainly because the horse is not ready physically, and is not properly trained for this transition, that is why too much rein is required.

When the hand goes backwards, not forward, the horse will immediately block the back. That’s why you see horses get disunited in the downward transition. A balanced horse is a horse in self carriage, lightness, which seeks the least possible support from the rider’s hands. It’s really a two way transaction, one thing leads to another.

A horse has a natural balance, which can only be interfered with by a rider sitting on it. The more skilled the rider is, the more the horse accepts the rider, the more it can keep the balance. The main task of the trainer is that of assessing the horse you are training. The stronger the horse gets, the more easy it becomes to keep the balance, the more you can start to ask of it, and there is no pace where the strength to create the correct balance is more crucial than the canter. So there we are – the basics.

There are no magic tricks, just lots and lots of transitions, lots of honest work to develop strength and suppleness… and on those basics, the most beautiful dressage can be performed.