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Michael Eilberg: introducing collection in canter

Dressage videos 28 Videos Amy Woodhead: how to ride a canter half pass to wow the judges 02:58 Amy Woodhead: how working for Carl Hester has set her up for success 06:14 Watch Carl Hester at home: 'I can't wait to get out of bed and train horses towards grand prix' 02:31 Tales from Hartpury: the nine-year-old rising star with an Olympic dream 02:35 Winter Dressage Championships day four: one-two for Dujardin 03:43 Sophie Wells' rising star impresses on prix st georges gala night 01:22 Winter Dressage Championships day three: former runaway horse shows what she's made of for championship first-timer 03:30 Tales from Hartpury: the event horse making waves in her new career 01:56 Tales from Hartpury: Five horses and 13 tests — but did this rider remember where to go? 01:04 Tales from Hartpury: the horse with a rare skin condition that travelled in first gear for six miles 02:02 Winter Dressage Championships day two: Dujardin wants her rising star's foal for Easter 03:35 Tales from Hartpury: meet the family pony rubbing shoulders with dressage's big guns 01:08 Winter Dressage Championships day one: a shock victory and a horse defies the odds to do a double 04:43 H&H dressage editor’s Area Festival video diary: Disbelieving the results of my small and fairly average horse 05:03 Watch Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro's European freestyle dressage test 07:13 Watch Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro wow the crowds at Hartpury 09:37 What is 'breath energy' and could it help your riding? 03:48 Watch Charlotte Dujardin riding Valegro's freestyle on a catch ride 06:38 Ruth Edge: How to ride the perfect 10m circle 01:18 Exclusive: watch Valegro work out on a water treadmill 02:46 'Squat to exhaustion': meet Alice Oppenheimer 02:43 Carl Hester and Charlotte Dujardin: A bit of banter 03:15 Maria Eilberg: How to improve your horse's walk 02:03 Maria Eilberg: how to improve your horse’s trot 01:21 Michael Eilberg: How to ride a square halt 03:35 Michael Eilberg: introducing collection in canter 05:01 Michael Eilberg: teaching your horse to rein back 05:03 Watch Farouche's winning test at the BD nationals 05:44

  • Once you have a feeling that there is a good amount of energy and impulsion within an established canter with your horse, start to ride some differences within the pace.

    Use a half-halt to bring the horse backwards slightly while ensuring that the impulsion doesn’t die. Then ride your horse forwards to make a nice difference to the canter. Repeat this exercise, forwards and backwards. You should notice a development within the canter towards some collection as the horse is achieving better balance with more weight being carried into the hind leg.

    Always remember that before you bring the horse back, make sure he is in front of your leg. This will ensure that you have something to take back when asking for the collection.

    Don’t ask for too much in one go – three to 10 strides, depending on how established your horse is will be sufficient.

    The differences within the pace will help to engage the hind leg and aid activity within the canter which is extremely important for successful collection which will be required from your horse at higher level tests.

    Another good exercise to help collection of the canter is to use small circles (approximately 10m in diameter if possible). These can help to develop the horse’s balance and allows you to challenge the energy of the canter without the horse becoming too onward bound. This also helps to ‘feed’ the hind leg with energy without the horse running and to encourage the horse to sit within the collection.

    Repeat this exercise on both reins to check that your horse is even.

    The third exercise you can try is to use a pole in the corner of the arena to use as a guideline to encourage riding into the corners. It must be easy to ride this exercise in walk before trying it in canter.

    Ride in canter onto a square, riding forwards on the sides before collecting, using the pole to take you into the corner.

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