The Nürnberger Burg-Pokal is the world’s most prestigious competition for young Prix St Georges horses. At the competition in 2017, Escolar, ridden by Hubertus Schmidt, scored a 10 for his canter. Here’s some pix of Escolar and Hubertus in competition, plus some other canter shots to study. All the riders and horses are classically trained.

First Hubertus and Escolar and the canter that scored a ten, it’s a series, down the long side, and back to collection on the short side. Each pic of this combination,  is the first beat of the canter stride.

Now a gallery of different canters with comments from Johan Hamminga

Johan Hamminga comments

“When you make the horse longer and you give him more rein and you keep the contact, you develop a longer neck, and then it is possible for the horse to stretch his hind legs under his body, like in the canter photo where the hindleg is nearly to the girth, and that is riding for me.”

Here’s some more canter images…

Phase 1 of a canter stride, outside hind, to be followed by the inside hind and outside fore leg. You can see that the inside hind hoof will ground slightly before it’s outside fore pair, a characteristic of an uphill canter.

Johan Hamminga comments:

“This is San Siro in canter. In this canter moment, note the distance between the right and the left hind leg, his left hind leg is coming under the body as far as possible and in this moment if you take a vertical line through the ear, shoulder, hip from Jennifer, and the horse’s fetlock, you see the left hind leg is on that vertical line, you see also why it is possible for his left hind leg to come so far, because his neck is coming out of his wither forwards, so he can stretch the neck, and that is the reason the inside hind leg is coming so far under the body, and that gives him so much balance. Good contact between Jennifer and the horse, both reins the same soft contact, in her hands and arms, there is not a lot of power, he is soft. When the horse is in balance, he is always soft on your reins.”

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