The Basic Canter Seat

The good news about sitting a canter is that it’s a whole lot less bumpy than the trot. The complicating part is that it’s also a whole lot faster (If you’re anything like me, that’s the fun part).

The canter is a three-beat gait. There are six phases, but you can only feel three of them. This is because the horse’s different legs hit the ground at three distinct points. Look at the diagram. At step one of a right-lead canter (we’ll talk about leads in a second), the horse’s left hind foot is touching the ground. This is beat one. At step two, his right hind and left front feet (known as the “diagonals” because they are diagonally opposite each other) both hit the ground at the same time. This is beat two. Then in step three, his left hind foot leaves the ground, but because there is no impact (no new foot is hitting the ground) there is no beat. You don’t really feel this step. In step four, the horse’s right front foot hits the ground. This is the third beat. In step five, his diagonals (the right hind foot and the left front foot) leave the ground, but again you don’t feel this and it doesn’t count as a beat. In step six, all of his feet leave the ground. This full suspension in mid-air prepares him to put his left hind foot down again to start a new stride, with a new beat one.

Phases of the canter

So you might have noticed, most clearly in step four, that the horse could be leading with either his right foot or his left foot. This is what I meant by leads. When a horse is leading with his left front foot, it’s called his left lead. When he’s leading with his right front foot (as Noah is here) it’s called his right lead. A horse should always be leading with his inside leg; a circle to the right (clockwise) should be in a right lead canter.

So how do you sit this?! Well, you’re supposed to stay mostly still, even with all that movement going on underneath you. Your butt is supposed to stay glued to the saddle, your back is supposed to stay straight with your core right in line with your hips and heels—which are of course, supposed to stay down and back and absolutely NOT swing.

That’s what SUPPOSED to happen. If you look closely at the pictures above, you’ll notice that in step one Noah’s shoulders are higher than his hips; by step three, they are even; and at step five his hips are higher than his shoulders. This rocking motion makes it very easy to tip forward and backward—or really, to feel like you’re getting pushed or thrown backward and forward! If you’re trying hard to be good and keep your butt in the saddle, you might find that your whole upper body is waving back and forth. The biggest trick to sitting in a canter is to get your hips and lower back to absorb this rocking motion.

You can try this at home: sit on a chair with a cushion, like an office chair. Sit up nice and tall, with your hips in line with your spine. Now arch your lower back and stick you butt back. As you do this, can you feel how you actually are rolling forward onto the front part of your pelvis? Now do the opposite. Let your lower back bulge backward and your butt come underneath you. Here, your hips are rolling backward. All you have to do is let your hips and lower back swing back and forth like this as your horse’s shoulders and hips rise and fall. By letting your hips and lower back take in all the motion, your upper body can stay nice and still and balanced.

This, as you might guess, is just the beginning! If you check out my top ten mistakes in the canter, you can see that there’s always more to learn and work on. Good luck, and keep practicing ;)