How to Break a Pace Canter or 4 Beat Canter for the Tennessee Walking Horse

#tennesseewalkinghorse #Canter #GaitedHorse
Here are a couple exercises that help in how to Break a Pace Canter or 4 Beat Canter for the Tennessee Walking Horse. If you struggle with a lazy four beat canter or tense pacey canter with your Tennessee Walking Horse, you're not alone. I have wrestled with both in the training of my naturally gaited Tennessee walking horse.
In this video, me and Makana work on a couple exercises that have helped us improve the quality of our canter. The first one is using rein back to bend the hindquarter joints and engage the abdominals to lift the back before transitioning to canter. This has helped position my horse in the best posture conducive for a quality canter.
The second exercise is SUPER FUN! I show step-by-step the process of cantering over a pattern of ground rails that brings more airtime which breaks up a four-beat canter.
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[@adamthehorse8685]

Although my dressage horse wannabe is not gaited, I struggle with flat 4 beat canter too. I am doing many exercises atm in canter (sholuder ins etc) but actually never thought about how continuining bad canter actually embraces it? Even though it sounds very logical haha. So I will definetely try out the rein back tip. Thank you for your video!

[@chrisbahlo5558]

A friend pointed this video out to me. It is great to see this well thought out and positive approach to a common problem with gaited horses. It is also nice to see some common sense, light hands, classical principles and overall good horsemanship applied. Sadly, there is just so much bad horsemanship in the world of gaited horses. Well done.

[@NaturallyGaitedHorse]

Chris Bahlo thank you for the kind words.

[@kaitlynb.9717]

Could you do a video comparing the 4 beat canter to the 3 beat canter? Like in slow motion too? That would help a lot!

[@NaturallyGaitedHorse]

Thanks for the suggestion. Great idea! I will work on it.

[@pjstar2009]

Can you please describe what you do in a “rein back?”

[@NaturallyGaitedHorse]

For the rein back, I close my fingers on the reins without pulling back. This tells my horse don't go forward. Then I draw my heels slightly behind the girth, hold my weight in my thighs and move my pelvis upward to lighten my seat. If my horse feels hollow, then I hug my horse with my heels (no spurs) to encourage her to engage her abdominal muscles and lift her back. The forward cues are opening my fingers without giving away the reins, move my pelvis forward and squeezing and release my calves if needed to move forward.

[@EllenDawn100]

Some of the smoothest canters I've ridden were 4 beats.