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So I have a question. When I ride my horse bareback, he's fine at the walk trot, but we we canter he's horrible for me. He ducks his head way down and sometimes tries to buck. He does't do this when we have tack. Actually he's really good when we have tack on. But bareback, he just seems like a slightly different horse. He's not gotten me off yet, it's just a matter of sitting on him and pulling his head up, but I hate having to do it every time. Any ideas?
Your balance might be off at a canter or there might be something painful happening when you canter bareback. The weight distribution is different so you may be sitting on something that is hurting under the motion of the canter and they way your weight is spread. See if you can find someone that's aware of the situation and with experience to help you out and watch them canter him bareback. if he act's the same maybe have a vet or chiropractor come out and see if there's something off that may be causing him pain. Or it could be as simple as your horse not liking to canter bareback. Some horses are peculiar about that stuff.
You should build up his muscle. my horse was the same way, we built muscle and now.we.can jump bareback. Take him for a walk up and down hills bareback. that will help.
One of my horses does that! Lol, he is a wee bit lazy and thinks he can dump his rider and then go eat grass and chill for awhile. Hopefully whatever the problem is you can get it fixed. :-)
