How to ride extended canter for higher marks, balance and control – with advice from Laura Tomlinson
In this exclusive article for H&H subscribers, Olympic medallist Laura Tomlinson explains how to ride extended canter with real ground cover, uphill balance and control
Who doesn’t love an extended canter? It’s one of the few moments in dressage where it feels acceptable to cut loose. So you pick up canter, turn across the diagonal and think: “Right, here we go”.
You put your leg on, and the horse takes you. It feels powerful. It feels bold. From the saddle, it feels like you’re eating up the ground like Glamourdale.
But from C, it might look more like the horse simply ran faster, ploughing onto the forehand.
That gap – between what feels impressive and what actually scores well – is where most extended canters unravel.
Not because riders aren’t trying hard enough, or putting enough oomph in. But because the extended canter asks for something counter-intuitive: more ground cover without more speed.
As Laura Tomlinson explains: “Ideally, the horse doesn’t particularly speed up. They should stay open and uphill in the frame, with that bit more ground cover.”
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Get it right, and it looks effortless. Get it wrong, and problems with balance, straightness and control are exposed in just a few strides.
What the judge wants to see in extended canter
Extended canter is about showing the horse’s maximum stride length and ability to open the frame without losing the jump, the balance or the line.
The best extended canters have:
- A clear, visible increase in stride length and ground cover
- An open, uphill frame – not flat or downhill
- The same canter rhythm, just more reach
- A horse that stays straight and connected
- A seamless return to collection afterwards
Laura’s key distinction is quality over quantity: “I would always break it down to quality, not quantity of steps when you’re teaching them.”
Where extended canter goes wrong
We’ve all been there. In extended canter it often feels as though you have two choices: contain the horse and end up with a tight, limited stride, or let go and hope the canter grows – and that you can stop when you need to.
Neither produces the picture judges reward.
Laura sees the mistake in jumping too: “You can put your leg on and have a bit of speed, but you haven’t actually created more energy.”
And anyone who jumps will recognise the difference. A canter that feels quick but hollow won’t leave the ground; a canter with energy has jump, airtime and adjustability.
It’s the difference between galloping at a fence and arriving with something you can actually use.
Dressage is no different. Speed is just the horse moving its legs faster. Energy is what gives you lift, reach and suspension.
If you don’t create – and then “hold on to that energy a little bit”, as Laura puts it – you won’t get usable energy for an extended canter.
And once the balance is gone, you can’t fake it back by pulling. The neck shortens, the stride flattens, the rhythm rushes – and the movement stops looking powerful and starts looking hurried.
The key idea: increase without speed
Laura describes this skill as “the critical thing to crack”.
Her answer is to think about the front end, not just pushing from behind.
She talks about riding with “inside leg into outside rein”, but crucially keeping “the neck straight up and out, and getting those shoulders to lift”. That detail matters. If the neck shortens or the horse curls, the shoulders drop – and once that happens, there’s nowhere for the stride to go except quicker.
When the shoulders lift, the frame opens. That creates space for the stride to lengthen without the rhythm changing.
In practice, that means riding for an uphill balance and allowing the horse to open its frame, rather than dropping the reins and chasing for more. The feeling is less about sending the horse away and more about letting the canter grow underneath you.
Or, as Laura puts it: “Catch that moment into the lift rather than just letting the energy run out the front door.”
How to teach and ride extended canter at home
Extended canter is rarely built by riding long diagonals again and again. It’s built by short, repeatable efforts where the horse learns the difference between “go bigger” and “go faster”.
Laura’s go-to structure is simple: “Transitions of, say, five, six strides of increase on a circle, and then a little bit back again. Five, six strides of increase… and collect again.”
This does two things:
- It stops the horse from locking onto the hand and running
- It teaches the rider to feel the first good steps, not chase more
A useful positioning tweak: shoulder-fore
Laura suggests a small change many riders find immediately helpful: “Maybe even a little bit of shoulder-fore in the canter down the long side.”
She’s careful with the wording because people can overdo it: “Shoulder-fore, I say, because I know some people as soon as you say the word shoulder-in, the horses are on the forehand.”
The point is not the bend. The point is lift.
“The onus is on your inside leg, pushing that inside shoulder up,” she says – but without blocking it. “If you have too much inside flexion, they’re going to block that inside shoulder.”
So think: body slightly in front of the quarters, but “head and neck straight so that you’re giving room for that inside shoulder to come up.”
How much should you push?
This is where riders get frustrated, because there isn’t one universal answer.
“Each horse has a sweet spot as to how much you push and how much you hold,” Laura says.
Some horses need the rider to “hold a bit more, and they increase nice and big”. Others need you to “open up the front door a little bit” so the stride can come out at all.
And some horses will give you “that slight explosiveness” and stay balanced. Others will “immediately run”, which means you have to “squeeze it slowly out.”
The skill is not picking one method and sticking to it. The skill is developing feel and being able to adjust without changing the rhythm.
While you’re still developing that feel, record yourself as often as you can riding forward and back. Did the stride actually get longer, or did the tempo just increase?
One useful exercise borrowed from showjumping is stride adjustment. Jump riders learn to ride, say, three or five strides between fences without changing the rhythm. You can apply the same idea on the flat.
Pick two markers in your school and practise riding different numbers of canter strides between them, increasing and decreasing the length of the stride without letting the canter run.
The rider problem: hanging on down the rein
For many riders, the real barrier isn’t the horse. It’s the habit of using the hand to manage power.
Laura’s solution is to teach an “independence from the hands” so the rider can sit, create energy, and then allow.
She again recommends lots of forward-back work on a circle, teaching the rider to push forwards with the seat and then bring the horse back “with your thighs – feeling like you’re sucking those back towards you”.
Then comes the important test: can you bring the horse back, “give a pat and see if the horse stays collected in that moment”?
Or, more simply: can you “put your hands forward to the mouth and back” without the canter changing?
Those small exercises teach you that you don’t have to hold the horse together. And that matters because if you ride the extended canter by holding on, you pay for it at the end too.
As Laura says, if you want the horse to come back, “you squeeze, you set up a little half-halt, and you’re already soft again.” If you’ve been strangling the canter, the return is abrupt, and it ruins what comes next – especially if there’s a flying change afterwards.
Why the return matters as much as the extension
The judges don’t score extended canter in isolation.
If the horse lengthens and then can’t rebalance, the movement loses quality. It looks like a horse being sent away rather than a horse being ridden.
Laura links it directly to self-carriage: it’s easier when the horse is “in his own balance, self-carriage, rather than me holding him.”
Common mistakes in extended canter (and fixes)
1: It turns into a run
Fix: ride short increases (5–6 strides), then back. Catch the first good steps.
2: The horse flattens
Fix: think lift in front. Use a touch of shoulder-fore to keep the inside shoulder from dropping.
3: Too much bend and inside flexion
Fix: keep the neck straight “up and out” so the shoulder can lift and the stride can open.
4: The rider hangs on the rein to control it
Fix: build independence from the hand with forward-back on a circle, then test it by giving and retaking the rein without changing the canter.
5: The return to collection is abrupt
Fix: organise before the end of the diagonal. Half-halt, then soften. Don’t pull and hope.
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Oscar joined Horse & Hound in October 2023 and is the magazine’s dressage editor and sports manager, overseeing coverage of equestrian sport. After studying equine science at Myerscough College, he spent four years working for leading dressage rider Emile Faurie, competing at the 2015 National Dressage Championships and travelling with the yard to CDIs including Aachen and Saumur. He holds a master’s degree in Literature from York St John University (2021).