Improving Your Horse Riding Position in Canter

The canter is called a diagonal gait and it is the only gait that gives the rider a sensation of rocking vertically up and down and also back and forth.

Imagine the horse in mid-air in the moment of suspension with his four legs tucked underneath him. He is in right canter so his left hind will come forward and down first.

As it lands, his hindquarters lower and his back, forehand, head and neck will be felt to come up and slightly back towards the rider. They level as his right hind and left fore land, and lower as his leading leg, the right fore, lands. At that point, too, the hindquarters rise a little allowing the hind legs to come forward. Then, when the leading leg leaves the ground, all his legs tuck up underneath his body again in the next suspension phase, and the sequence is repeated.

Rocking Back And Forth In Canter

Many riders, sitting on that rocking sensation, instinctively try to counteract the up-and-down-back-and-forth thrust of the horse's body. Without thinking, they let their upper body go forwards (to prevent themselves being thrown back) as the outside/left hind lands and the forehand lifts towards them, and backwards again when the leading/right leg lands (to avoid being thrown forwards and down) and the forehand drops, so they are rocking against the horse's movements, counterbalancing themselves which is understandable, but wrong.

Order yourself to sit up straight and absorb the movement of the horse with your seat, mainly through your hips, although the spine comes into play as well. Imagine that your seatbones and hip joints form a hinge between your seat and your horse's back. The hinge is set across the saddle, one flap of the hinge going up as your body and the other lying flat as the horse's body.

To avoid rocking, you must let the lower half of the hinge rock up and down but the upper half keep vertical, so only the lower half of the hinge is moving.

To help you, think of the horse rocking up and down beneath the fulcrum of your seatbones but supplement this with a slight forward movement of your upper body (from the seatbones/hips hinge) as the leading leg lands (opposite to your natural tendency to rock backwards at this point), and of allowing your upper body to return to vertical, not rocking backwards, as the outside hind lands for a new stride.