Turn About Training, Stephenville, TX (2026)

06/23/2026

In order to be able to canter well the horse has to be able to lift himself into the canter with his outside hind leg. This means that both hind legs need to be able to step far enough underneath the body, and they need to be able to flex in their upper joints so that each hind leg is able to lift horse and rider up.

This requires a certain degree of straightness and suppleness, as well as some strength in the hindquarters and core muscles, which is why horses who are not born with a fabulous canter often need more time and more work to develop the skill and the strength needed for a balanced canter depart.

Straightness is needed to be able to canter on both leads.

Crooked horses will often canter only on the lead of the hollow/concave side, but not on the lead of the stiff/convex side.

The reason is that the legs of the stiffer side tend to support a larger share of the body mass. As a result, the legs of the hollow/concave side are less burdened and therefore more available for movement. They tend to lift off sooner and take longer strides than the others, which predisposes the horse to canter on the lead of the hollow side.

In order to enable the horse to canter on both leads, he has to learn to support his weight with his left pair of legs as well his right pair of legs.

Suppleness is needed because the outside hind leg has to flex under the body mass in order to lift horse and rider up. If the outside hind leg is too far behind, it won’t flex its joints, and it can’t lift the weight. Instead, it will push the body mass forward in flat, quick strides. If it is underneath the body, but remains unflexed, it can result in bucking or running away because the horse doesn’t really know how to deal with the effect of the weight on his hind legs.

Strength in the hindquarters and abdominal muscles is required because the canter depart is a little like weight lifting, where the athlete squats underneath the bar bell and then stands up.

The work that teaches the horse the body awareness, the coordination, the straightness, the suppleness, and gives him the necessary strength for the canter is done mostly at the walk and trot. The old masters used to say that it is the trot work that develops the canter, and it was customary in the past to train the horses in the lateral movements in the trot before starting serious canter work.

De la Guérinière even mentions that horses were trained in piaffe and passage as well before he started to train the canter.

Here are some specific qualities to look for when preparing the horse for the canter:

* Well balanced walk and trot
* Through the back
* On the bit
* Relatively straight
* Half halts go through
* Shoulders can turn
* Hind legs can sidestep

You develop these qualities through the work we call “bending in motion”, which can be divided into three phases:

Phase 1: Bending and turning (circles, serpentines, voltes, figure 8s, turn on the haunches)

Phase 2: Sidestepping with the bend against the direction of travel (enlarging the circle, turn on the forehand in motion, leg yield, shoulder-in, counter shoulder-in)

Phase 3: Sidestepping with the bend in the direction of travel (haunches-in, renvers, half pass, passade/pirouette)

Horses with a very good natural canter may only have to be worked in bending and turning exercises to be able to canter well.

Many, if not most horses should also be able to do some exercises that involve sidestepping with bending against the direction of travel before they are balanced enough to canter well. In some cases, you may even have to work on haunches-in, half passes, and perhaps even the piaffe before they are balanced and coordinated enough to canter.

Bending and turning creates the lateral suppleness of the horse’s shoulders and spine that is required for a well balanced, uphill canter.

Sidestepping with the bend against the direction of travel creates the necessary lateral suppleness of the hind legs, and it brings the crossing hind leg closer to the center of gravity, so that you can flex its joints with the help of the body mass.

Half halts and transitions between walk and halt, trot and walk, and trot and halt develop the vertical suppleness of the hindquarters that is necessary to squat and lift with his hind legs.

They also develop core muscle strength.�If your horse is familiar with the reinback or with haunches-in, renvers, and half pass, you can use those as well to improve the flexion of the haunches, as well as the strength of the hindquarters and core muscles.

06/17/2026

Many horses don’t have a good awareness of their hind legs. Some of them don’t seem to realise that they have them at all. Others seem to forget to bring them with them, sometimes. They just put them down and leave them behind, instead of picking them up again and moving them under the body. Some horses don’t seem to trust them. They act as if they are afraid to put any weight on them, for fear of them hurting or collapsing under the body mass.

Due to their natural crookedness, most horses tend to support themselves with the same lateral pair of legs. When you ask them to shift the weight to the other side of the body, many of them get nervous and defensive because they think they will fall down. They either don’t realise that they have two legs on the other side of the body as well, or they don’t believe that these legs are strong enough to support the body mass.

One of the results of the uneven lateral weight distribution is that only one hind leg is available to lift off and move. The other one is kept on the ground by the weight. That’s why horses will tend to move off from the halt with the same hind leg every time, if you leave them to their own devices. In order to lift the hind leg that is supporting the majority of the weight, the horse has to shift his weight to the other side first. Otherwise, he would fall down. The horse feels this dilemma when you ask him to pick up this hind leg, and if he doesn’t know how to shift the weight to the other side, he will either lift the other three legs, or he will get tense and nervous because he doesn’t want to fall down. This problem is much more common than you would think.

It is necessary to work on the horse’s proprioception because as long as he supports himself much more with the legs on one side of his body, he will remain crooked, unbalanced, and braced, which prevents him from developing his top line.

In order to balance himself well and move with a high degree of efficiency, he needs to be able to feel where his legs are, where the majority of the weight is supported, and how to redistribute the weight from one side of the body to the other, or from one leg to another.

04/28/2026

I’ve a couple of openings coming open for next month if you’re looking to get one started or perhaps help with a project.

04/04/2026

The Illusion of the Missing Piece

There’s a resistance that shows up when you try to teach people something simple. It sounds too simple to be true, and often people believe that can't possibly be the whole picture.

Because simple requires staying, and staying is something we are no longer societally conditioned to do. But progress and results, unfortunately, require just that - a simplicity in putting one foot in front of the other, staying until you understand it, and staying until it works.

Instead, there’s this constant reaching for something else. A better tool. A different method. A new system. Something just out of reach that promises to make the whole process smoother, faster, easier. More effective. More interesting.

It’s rarely said outright, but the question sits just under the surface:

“Is there something I’m missing?”

And in today’s world, the answer is always—conveniently—yes.

There is always something to buy. Something to add. Something to optimize. A device to improve your meditation. A supplement to fix your focus. A program that promises results in half the time. The message is constant and subtle: if it’s not working, it’s because you don’t have the right thing yet.

With every post I make or clinic I teach, there is always the question about what gear to buy. It is extremely easy to get people to buy products, gear, or subscriptions, but very difficult to get people to stay in skill building long enough for it to work.

So people keep looking, and that’s where teaching gets difficult.

Because real progress usually lives in the exact place people are trying to leave.

It lives in the repetition they’re bored of.
In the basics they think they’ve already done.
In the quiet, unremarkable work that doesn’t feel like progress—until it is.

But that kind of work doesn’t sell.

There’s nothing flashy about riding the same circle until it’s actually balanced. Nothing exciting about refining timing, feel, awareness—things that can’t be packaged or shipped or upgraded overnight.

So instead of settling in and working through it, people start to drift. They change approaches too soon.
They interrupt the process before it has time to produce anything.
They trade depth for novelty.

And the hardest part, from a teaching perspective, is that it doesn’t look like resistance.

It looks like curiosity.
Like dedication.
Like someone who’s “trying everything.”

But underneath it, there’s a lack of trust—both in the process and in the idea that the answer might not be new.

It might be right here. It might be doing the same thing again, but better.

Doing it slower, with more awareness.
That’s a hard sell in a world that rewards acceleration and constant input.

There’s also a kind of discomfort people are trying to avoid.

Because when you strip everything else away—no new tools, no new systems, no distractions—you’re left with your own ability. Your own timing, your own abilities, your own feel, and all the emotions that stir under the surface. All the places where those things fall short.

It’s much easier to believe the problem is external, that something is missing, rather than sit in the reality that nothing is missing—except refinement.

So people keep searching, and in doing that, they unintentionally stay stuck.

Not because they aren’t trying, but because they’re never staying in one place long enough for anything to actually change.

Good teaching, then, becomes less about adding information and more about holding the line.

About bringing people back—again and again—to what matters.
To what works -
To what is already in front of them.

And asking them to stay there just a little longer than they want to.

Long enough to get past the boredom.
Past the doubt.
Past the feeling that this simplicity repeated until perfection can’t possibly be enough.

More often than not, the simplest is the most effective - though that does not make it easy, and therein lies the challenge: to hold the line long enough to develop real feel, real skill, and to make it all look effortless, knowing that beneath that lie hours of dedicated effort to the same basics.

Address

Stephenville, TX

Telephone

+13254500041

Website

http://www.turnabouttraining.com/

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