EXERCISE 2

Next ensure that you can get a good direct transition from walk to canter. You can’t gather an empty vessel, so you need to make sure that your horse is going forwards before you even think about riding a simple change and collecting him. To begin with ride this exercise on a 20m circle going in the same direction. Once you are confident that you’re getting a good reaction, start asking for a different lead on the second canter strike off. Make this into a proper simple change and change the rein.

1 In canter, start by riding a few forward and back transitions within the pace to check that your horse is on your aids.

2 Now you can start asking for some forward walk to canter transitions to ensure that your horse reacts promptly to the aid. To do this, ask for an active walk, then give a clear canter aid with your outside leg behind the girth, inside leg on the girth, and a very small inside rein flexion to indicate to him which leg to strike off on.

l Once you feel your horse is going nicely forward into a contact, collect the canter by imagining that you’re trying to get him to canter on the spot and then, at the appropriate moment, give a clear aid for walk. Do this in the same way that you collected the canter — not by pulling back, but by sitting up and not following the nod of the head in canter with your hands.

Keep your leg on so that your horse doesn’t break into trot. If he does, ride forward in canter and try again. It’s important that your horse doesn’t drop the aid.

4 Repeat by going back up to canter again. For every canter-walk transition you ride, you should do two or three where you ride all the preparation, but don’t actually go into walk. This is to stop your horse anticipating what it is that you’re asking for.