rushing thru into canter

Murray has lately been rushing thru into canters while trotting. He does little hiphops and it's hard for me to keep him at a trot.

Before, I was never able to have him pick up a canter but now he does (and on the wrong lead). My coach says I should relax and still do my trot work at a sitting trot, but I think I need help more on this.

Any ideas? Thanks.

What I see mostly in riders who have a rushed transition into a canter is that they are very stiff with their horse from the trot to canter.

I would do what your coach says, sitting trot, even if you are brave enough ride bareback at a trot (this helps a lot with learning balance).

Do you lunge at all?

Sometimes when I was learning how to go from trot to canter I lunge first to get my horse 'warmed up' to going from a trot to canter at a relaxed rate. Then I would get on, and slowly work up to it again. I found this helps since my horse isn't the most graceful sometimes hehe.

Thanks! I don't lunge him often, which is what I should be doing. I'll try at a bareback, see if that at all helps. Thanks again!

Ditto to what RedRoan said. You cannot do too much lunging. It gets him in the mindset that 'yes we're going to work today' and it gets a lot of the kinks out of him. It also helps with the leads since it's harder to take the outside lead when they're going in a circle. ;)

Your problem is exactly the reason I don't go from a trot to a lope/canter. When trotting I never let him break to a lope. I can encourage the trot extending it to 12-13 mph without breaking since a canter is not an option ever.
I go from a walk or halt to a lope and he maintains the rythem even if almost stalled until I say walk, again no trot allowed .
For those that go from a walk to a trot and then to a lope are just risking this same problem

Um... RiosDad...

Then how come all the world championship show riders out there warm up gradually? All you need to do is work on your rythem and how you prepare your horse under you in order to do what ever you want to do. The simple answer is teach the horse clear clues on what you want .

You always mention this, and like I've said before, it obviously works for you, so I'm not bashing it, but it's very unlikely that you will ever be able to convince anyone else of this. =] There are tons of people out there, myself included, that can maintain a rhythm at any gait, no matter what the next transition is. Just because you don't want to do that doesn't mean the rest of us are risking it and letting it cause a problem, because really, it all comes down to a lack of training.

And to the OP. In my experience, whenever a horse rushes into the canter, it is because he lacks the balance he needs to carry himself through the transition. The fact that he's picking up the wrong lead almost proves my point. You horse needs to work at the trot, circles and serpentines, and TONS of transitions from walk to trot to stop to trot to walk to stop to walk, etc. He needs to learn where his center of gravity is and how to carry himself in such a way that allows him to do whatever it is you ask of him, all the while staying balanced.

Now if he is rushing into the canter as in a "bolting" sense, that's a different training issue altogether. If that's the case, trot to canter to trot to canter to trot to canter, until he realizes that the canter doesn't mean go fast, it just means to canter. Good luck with him. =]

I'm not a world class anything. I am a trail rider but my horse will pick a nice working trot and hold it all day in an endurance race or I can pick a lope and he will hold it without breaking stride for an hour or hour and a half, even when negotiating a ditch and over the highway.
Again it is my own way of training and I want a horse that isn't bouncing from one gate to another.
I am not a ring rider or show rider.
I do have the best working horses around

Read riccil0ve's post then Rio.

If I wanted a work horse or trail horse I would want a horse that went smoothly into anything I asked it to do. No matter if it was from a trot to lope/canter or anything else.

Horses that bounce back and forth between a lope and trot on the trial are a pain. If you ride with anyone else this constant breaking pace makes it difficult for those following you. If you are all working at a trot you want the horses to maintain this constant trot, mile after mile, no speeding up on downhills, no slowing down the up hill grades.
At times while running endurance I want a fast trot and I can push him to any speed I want without his breaking to a lope.
On other occassions I want a long lope, one that he maintains for 10 or more miles, I don't want to bug him, I don't want to have to remind him to keep the pace easy, laid back and on the hind end. I want flying changes for the curves/corners but if the pace slows down for a tight spot, a ditch, crossing a road I still want him to maintain the motion.
If the horse is not rock solid on his gates he will break.