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[RC] Collected Canter - k s swigart

Dian said:


Then start cantering, this will take practice to get
the horse to carry itself in a collected manner, if
you are ripping across the landscape at an rather
high rate of speed, please slow down to a collected
nice show canter but not the peanut roll canter.


Actually, a true collected canter (like the collected trot) is not a
particularly useful gait for an endurance horse.  Generally speaking
horses travel most efficiently in their "working" gaits and start to
lose the efficiency of their gaits when they start to either extend or
collect them.

And all of the variations of a gait (working, extended or collected) are
better performed if the horse is in self-carriage, but self carriage and
collection are not the same thing (although it is impossible to obtain
true collection without self-carriage first).

Pretty much the only place I use the collected canter out on the trail
(unless I am specifically schooling that particular movement) is when
cantering down a fairly steep hill; and even then, the hill has got to
be pretty steep (steeper than most people are willing to canter down,
and I don't make a habit of it in endurance competitions).  One of the
things that Hillary Clayton found in her analysis of collected gaits is
that the front legs do more braking than in the working paces.  Braking
with the front legs on every stride isn't a particularly efficient way
to cover ground.  So, just like extension, collection is something to be
avoided in endurance horses, both of them are too much work for the
horse :).

kat
Orange County, Calif.

p.s. The "peanut roller" "lope" that you see on western pleasure show
horses is not a canter at all.  It is a four beat, disunited canter with
the hind quarters trailing.  So Dian is right about that one, you do
want to avoid that as well.



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