Hi everyone,Ive been looking into western riding for a few months and have got as far as a lovely saddle fitted to my mare. I have just been to my first show, the wes championships, and have come back in awe! ive a lovely little mare whose only weakness is not being well schooled, she is 11 but pretty green and unbalanced. Canter in particular is quite bad! Ive been doing quite a bit of lunging and she listens very well. How on earth do you progres from a normal english trot to a jog and also from a canter to a lope? is it a question of establishing trot and canter then working on collection and slowing things down? is there anyone ut there who has a non american bred horse who has converted to western and can give me tips? ive got david grays dvd but any further help is much appreciated.
thanx!

My mare, im selling her now, but she was originally an english horse, she is appaloosa, but not the american kind so doesnt have the natural jog like some do.

with her it was a case of lots and lots of circling in the gait, its hard for them to be slow at first becasue of the muslces they are using, and also becasue it requires a lot of balance, you need to get them on thier haunches to be able to go slow, lots of backing and circles and cahinging direction helped me and eventually she just got it.

but now i am finding he rlope isnt really a lope anymore its got far too collected and its not becasu i am using my rein or anything. there is one good thing about that though english riders that are trying her think shes amazing becasue of how collected she is with so ittle contact.