Welcome to Gaia! ::

My horse (Ruby) is a pure bred arabian mare. She was ridden as an endurance racer.. And as a cutting horse (I think). I'm fairly certain that both of these things have *basically* ruined her.
Her paces are really choppy and awkward. Her walk is extrodinary. I don't have any problem working her in a walk.
When I trot her, she is usually okay. Very fast. Much more than necessary! If I ride her in an enclosed ring where I can work to slow her down, she eventually does. And I can fall into a nice and slow trot.

As soon as I even think about Cantering her, she freaks out. With her, a canter is a gallop at full speed away from a monster that wants to eat her. And there is absolutely no way to stop her from taking you on a wild ride.
Multiple times she has bolted with me. During which I was so freaked out that I nearly flipped over her head/backwards in an attempt to have her slow down or stop. Still, its a futile attempt.

What I've noticed though, is that if we're on a straight path (Like on a trail) and I want to canter her, she is much more relaxed. I can ACTUALLY slow her down enough to enjoy it.
When I'm in a ring, she's insane.
In a field, she's insane.
I don't know if its the enclosed spaces, the open spaces, or just the fact that she's used to endurance racing.

I made the mistake of trying a Walk/Trot/Canter/Schooling class in a show a few times.
She took off running so fast that you could not see her if you took a picture.
*Following pictures are from one of my very first shows. Please note that I don't ride that badly anymore. :] * (I also don't ride western anymore.*

x
x
x

So yeah. I have slowed her down a little, but cantering is really out of the question for me at this point.
(Also please keep in mind that I am a good rider. My seat is fine, my hands are fine, my saddle has been checked and it fits... I really am at a loss.)
I need advice on how I can slow her down enough to not... Die?

Transitions transitions transitions!

Corky had the same problem, though maybe not to this degree. He was okay at the walk, would throw his head and run at the trot, and the canter... well the canter was just all kinds of scary.
We spent HOURS on walk-trot transitions. Literally two or three steps in each gait and then transitioning again. You need to get her to where she's listening to your aids. Make sure when you're transitioning down, you're not dragging her to a stop. She needs to be forward and into the bit throughout the transition and stay balanced and relaxed. Half of the reason that a lot of horses run is because they're unbalanced, and it's easier for them to balance when they're going fast.

So balance and suppling is your key. Transitions will help with the balance and carriage, especially if they're performed correctly. Really concentrate on getting her to stay in balance and get her working over her topline, picking up her shoulder, and bringing her back up. Start working leg-yielding at the walk. If you haven't done a lot of it with her, start off just leg yielding from the quarter line to the rail. Really concentrate on keeping her straight. Aim more for quality steps rather than a steep angle. The idea is you want her to engage the inside hind and step under and across her body, thus its use as a suppling exercise. Once she's got that, work on leg yielding a few steps away from the rail a few steps, then going straight. Same thing, concentrate on staying straight, balanced, and forward. Once she's got that figured out, start doing zigzags. A few steps to the left, then change the bend and go back to the right a few steps. Change it up to keep her attention. The point here, so is to get her really off your aids so she's really in tune with you. You can start working on the straight leg yields at the trot at this point, and once you've got them fairly solid and STRAIGHT at the walk, start working on the same thing at the trot.
CAUTION Do NOT pull her head sharply to the side and kick her sideways. This completely defeats the purpose of the leg yielding exercise because it ENCOURAGES a lack of balance and the horse just falling to the outside. In a leg yield the horse should remain mostly straight with a slight bend away from the direction of travel. SLIGHT bend. And it needs to be a correct bend throughout their body, not just in the neck.
(there's a good chance that you knew that, but I always try to be thorough in case someone else with a similar problem reads the thread and decides to borrow my exercises biggrin )

Meanwhile, your transition work should be continuing. Start lengthening and shortening the stride at the walk and trot. This is VERY important. If you can't get her to come back to you at the trot, you're not going to get her to come back to you at the canter. You need to be able to influence the gait. So do a few steps of working trot, a few steps of jog trot, back to working trot, extended trot, working trot, jog trot, etc. If you can go from a jog to an extension, all the better. The more "gymnastics" you do with her, the more responsive she will become, and the better chance you will have at controlling the canter.
Another CAUTION note:
Do not extend in the same place in the arena every time! I have seen SO MANY dressage horses that were trained to lengthen their stride across the diagonal that just TAKE OFF when you come around the corner. This is not being attentive and on the aids. This is anticipating and running away from you. Doesn't matter the quality of the movement, if you didn't ask for it, it's wrong.

Incorporate serpentines as well. She needs to be able to bend correctly and remain soft as you change direction. How many serpentine loops can you fit in your arena? I think I managed to get around 15 in ours.

Now, start combining these exercises. Use your transitions with your serpentines and your leg yields. Leg yield in the trot and transition to the walk on the rail. Leg yield out on a circle at the walk, transition to trot and leg yield back in. Or the opposite. Change it up. Make it interesting. One common thread I've found with most arabs I've worked with is that you cannot let them get BORED. You need to challenge their minds and find new ways to engage them. If you can get her thinking with you, and trying to guess what you're going to do next, most of the battle is won.

All of this time, don't touch the canter. Pretend it doesn't exist. I know, ignore it and it'll go away isn't a very good philosophy, but until you have the trot/walk work good where she is relaxed and attentive, you're not going to make much/any progress in the canter.

Once she's soft and supple in the trot and walk and you can move her around off your aids and she's listening and attentive, you can start adding the canter in. Start out with once or twice during a work out. Don't canter for very long. Be going about your business as normal, then set her up, canter half a circle, then go IMMEDIATELY into a leg yield. Take her mind off of it. It won't be a very good leg yield. She'll be out of her mind for a moment, do the exercises that are familiar to her that make her concentrate. Once you have her back to where you want her, canter again, for as short a period as you can manage, then back to leg yield. The key is to convince her that cantering is not a big deal, and to get her to think while she's doing it.

It won't be an instant fix. It won't be better in a week. It won't be fixed in a month, but you'll start seeing improvements. It took me over a year with Corky, but I wasn't the only one riding him. It would have been faster if it was just me, but that's what it is. This is not an easy or quick problem to fix if you want to do it right. You can put all sorts of martingales and tie downs and draw reins on her if you want an instant fix, but if you want her to be truly pleasurable to ride, I'd go with this method. It's been very successful for me, not only with Corky, but with other horses as well, he's just the first that I've been able to go all the way through with it with.

If you have ANY questions about any of that, if any of it didn't make sense, or you're having trouble with part of it, please feel free to ask. smile Either on here or in a PM, I don't care.

Happy Riding smile

ahhh gotcha. yeah, shamrocks problem was he was sitting in a stall all week and only got out like, twice a week. (now he's in a pasture! heart )

smile loved aria's answer though! i love all the help you guys offer us! so thank you to aria smile

Stargazer - LOVE your diagram!

Pianoangel and LoveIsForever - redface You guys are too nice. I've just been at this a while and have learned a LOT by trial and error. If I can help someone to be able to figure things out a little faster (and consequently prevent their horses having to go through what mine did! Goodness I owe some of those horses apologies...) then I feel like I've accomplished something. smile

If you have any questions AT ALL, please do not hesitate to ask. There is no such thing as a stupid question. Everyone comes from different backgrounds, so what may seem common sense to me will be something another person never thought of, but someone from a different background will have things that are ingrained that are completely out of my understanding. We all learn from each other, but only if we're willing to admit what we don't know. biggrin

I am familiar with the Parelli system. I've taken a few classes in Natural Horsemanship (just to round out my education). I'm not a huge fan of Parelli just because of the cult-like mentality that it engenders, but for the most part, the concepts are sound.

Let me know how the "lunging" goes. If she just wants to bolt and run when you ask her to canter on the line, it's not going to be doing you any good. That can work with quarter horses or horses that are out of shape sometimes, you can run them until they're completely exhausted and they'll learn not to be stupid anymore for the sake of conserving their energy. But that doesn't usually work with arabs or thoroughbreds because, well, they don't get tired.

I am a firm believer that you can never do too much ground work. Okay, well, that's not true. If you get so wrapped up in the ground work that you never actually get on, then you might be doing too much ground work. But It's something that can always be improved upon and will always help your riding and training.

haha, you have NO IDEA how many people told me that I "just need to lunge him!" when Griffin or my thoroughbred would go crazy at shows and stuff. I'd try to smile and thank them for the advice, while inwardly insulting their intelligence (I'm really not a very nice person...)

Griffin didn't lunge. I tried to teach him a few times, but he got really offended. He was one of those in-your-pocket personalities, and when I tried to send him out on the line, he got this really hurt expression on his face because I didn't want him there with me anymore. Lunging also wouldn't have done any good, because he acted up because he got excited and bucking was his expression of joy. Still not a good thing, but not something that lunging can fix, because he'd only buck after fences.

My thoroughbred lunged just fine, and I lunged him regularly in side reins as part of his fitness program. But I could ride that horse hard for three hours,and he would still prance all the way up the driveway on the way home. There was no "taking the edge off". In the two years that I owned him, I don't think I ever saw that horse tired.

Lunging has it's place, but, IMO, it is NOT to run your horse around in circles to "take the edge off". Which is not what you're doing with Ruby, of course. smile It sounds like you're using it effectively as a training tool, which is all kinds of awesome. smile

I'm glad everyone liked my diagram! Maybe I will post more when people are having problems. It really helps to visualize.