Standard bred riding questions

I have a standard bred that is Twenty years old. He a very handsome devil for his age and I was just going to ask a question on cantering. Now he did race for pacing so all that he knows right now is walking trotting and than his fastest is pacing with YOU on him lol its sooo much fun! But... it would be fun to canter on him too. Is there any special method? AI don't want to have to pay a trainer to come over and hate to think the person is doing so much wrong. I'm a very experienced rider and knows all the transitions and pretty much how to ride. Its just to get him to canter.

I have gotton him to canter for a couple strides last year....but for one day? And... I don't know how it happened! Lol So I was thinking...who's better than me to do it? So before I go and asked some other people I thought what the heck and asked people on horseforum. Have any ideas?

Thanks!

It's called retraining. If a SB breaks pace in a race they are disqualified, so they are trained quite harshly not to.

"AI don't want to have to pay a trainer to come over and hate to think the person is doing so much wrong." What?

Get a trainer to help you, as experienced of a rider you claim to be, training an OTSB to break pace is hard, and if you've had him for this long and have only gotten him to do it once and couldn't figure out how, then maybe you need the help of an experienced trainer.

Teaching a SB to canter can be done! I got my SB as a three yo pacer who didn't pass time trials. Back then, she couldn't canter more than a few strides without getting her legs muddled up and reverting to a trot or pace.

I taught my horse to canter by lunging and free lunging to allow her to sort out her legs without the interference of a rider and by discouraging pacing. Whenever she would try to transition to a canter, she would often start to canter but make a mistake with her legs and end up pacing. Once I was getting a few consistent strides of canter while lunging I moved to riding. When she paced while riding, I tapped her gently but rhythmically with the crop while half halting until she came back to a trot so she learned that pacing was uncomfortable. Once she had settled back to a relaxed trot, I would ask for a canter again until she got it right. Its important not to over do the cantering because they can get overwhelmed and tired and stop trying.

Now, my horse hasn't paced in years! Be patient though - I've seen SBs that have the living daylights thrashed out of them for reverting from pacing to cantering on the track. You have to be gentle when retraining because otherwise they panic thinking that you will do the same thing.

I thought you didn't want to talk to me

Yeah no that's great! I'm its not like my life is ending... I have loads of time eh? So you are telling me, that it is possible for me to train him, that's not telling me how I can do it, but that's okay dear ;) Thank you for your input hun!

My mare is a pacer also. She was mostly trained to canter when I got her, but she would slip back
SO luckily, I only had to work from the saddle.

I would ask for the canter and if she would pace I would bring her back down to a trot (by posting because your horse follows you.)
By bringing her down to the trot, she would learn that pacing was no fun. This is because trotting takes more muscles and is more tiring than a nice canter.

Also, once he understands cantering, let him get used to cantering and get more balanced. Then work on making it more "flexible" do circles! Nice big ones!!

Oh and just a though, I think teaching him in a round pen would be a little easier, since going in a circle is easier than an oval

^working on circles helped my mare's canter a LOT

Lot of circles. Over and over. It's hard to hold turbo trot in a ring. Standardbreds have a mandatory retirement from racing at 14 so your boy has been out of it for a bit.

Look for training articles on how to get a young one to canter. Just take it easy. Different set of muscles getting used and the older body doesn't recover quite as well.

My standardbred was a free legged pacer. She even chose to use some variation of a pace at liberty and rarely cantered or galloped even if the rest of the herd took off at full speed. She was able to keep up in turbo will all except my musclehead QH. I'm afraid I was a bit of a heretic and preferred her gaitedness and kept her doing her running walk and rack into her retirement at 34. I only remember making her canter a few times. I just had no need but then I'm an old fart and much prefer a pace where I can enjoy the scenery.