The walk to canter is one of those exercises that seems more straightforward than it is. Achieving a direct, straight, submissive, soft walk to canter transition takes a surprising amount of strength and balance from the horse.
Before introducing this exercise for the first time, it’s really important to make sure the basic transitions from walk to trot and trot to canter are established, quick and responsive. It will make your life much easier and help your horse to understand what it is you want.
I sometimes see riders trying to introduce the walk to canter by applying a hard aid with the outside leg and leaning forward. More often than not, the horse then doesn’t pick up on the forward driving aid, and instead swings the quarters away from the rider’s leg. The rider then increases the aid with the outside leg and the horse gets more and more confused and backward-thinking.
Instead of getting stuck in this way, the easiest approach is to ask the horse to trot for a couple of strides before quickly asking for the canter. This really relies on those basic transitions being as responsive as possible – so make sure you do your homework on these! . The walk should be forward, active and straight into both reins so it’s in the best possible position to move forward without hesitation. Once the horse gets the idea of going quickly from the walk to the canter with a few strides of trot in between, you can gradually reduce the number of trot steps.
The benefit of approaching the exercise in this way is that is encourages both horse and rider to think forward and straight. Once the transition become a bit more established and direct, you can start to put in the polish. Thinking about positioning the horse in shoulder-fore will encourage the inside hind leg to come further under the horse’s body, and give you a crisper transition.
Finally, don’t forget that the transition from walk to canter requires the horse to lift the front end and push the hind legs underneath its body. As riders, it’s tempting to lean forward to encourage the horse to move up to the next gait, but this can load the front end and make it harder for the horse to push up into the canter. It’s better to sit upright and allow the horse to lift the forehand up and into the first canter stride.