The canter pirouette is one of the most difficult of all dressage move¬ments. Both horse and rider must be in perfect balance and the horse must have a great deal of power and muscle to be able to perform it suc¬cessfully. It is a true test of good training. Nowadays in the musical freestyles, we see double pirouettes as a norm.
• The Spiral on the Circle
You can introduce the idea of the pirouette by using your spiral on the circle. To prepare your horse for the actual exercise, spiral in gradually with the horse in a slight shoulder-in position until you reach a small cir¬cle. As soon as you feel your horse is losing the canter beat, enlarge your circle and refresh your canter jump.
• The Circle with Half Pirouettes in the Walk
This is a good exercise to prepare the horse for work on pirouettes as well as to improve the balance in the canter at any time in the training at this level. Ride a 20-meter circle in the canter, make a transition to walk for one or two steps, ride a half pirouette in walk, change the bend, and ask a canter depart in the new direction. Repeat this several times on the circle, cantering halfway around the circle, and asking for the turn and the canter in the new direction.
• Canter Square
Remember riding the square at the walk in the beginning of your training? You can use the same idea to develop the pirouette. Bring your horse into the middle of the arena; it is easier to be in an open space than to be against the wall.
Canter a circle and begin to collect your horse as you do when you ride the medium canter followed by the canter on the spot. Ask the horse to collect and, at the same time, bring his fore¬hand around with your outside rein and ask for a quarter turn. As soon as you have accomplished two steps ride straight forward. Collect and ride another quarter turn of two steps. Continue on to make four turns on your square. It is important to keep the jump of the canter and to be able to ride straight forward after asking for two steps of the turn.
Note that many of the difficulties in riding the pirouette are caused by the rider using too much inside rein to turn the horse. Sit in the middle of your horse and turn your head to the inside, keeping your inside leg on the girth to keep the bend and activity of the horse’s inside hind leg. Bring your outside leg a little back from the girth to bring the horse’s outside hind leg under the body. You should then be able to bring the shoulders around with the outside rein, just as you did when riding the square in the walk. The concept is the same. The most important fact to remember in the beginning is to keep the canter active. By asking for only two steps on the spot, you have a better chance of keeping your canter active.
Once you can ride this exercise in both directions, asking for only two steps on the spot, begin to ask the horse to make three steps and ride for¬ward. Eventually you will want to ride four steps in the half pirouette. A full pirouette takes six to eight steps of canter to be correctly performed. In the half pirouette you need only to achieve four steps and be able to ride straight forward out of it. Often riders worry so much about the half pirouette, they forget that they have to ride out of it on a straight line, but this is all part of the exercise.
• The Pirouette from a Half Pass toward the Wall
Begin this exercise on the lead that is most comfortable for your horse.
Ride a half pass from the centerline toward the wall. Just past the quar¬ter line, straighten and ride a small volte toward the wall, and continue your canter half pass back to the other side of the arena. You can repeat the exercise on the other side of the arena. The wall will help you make a very small turn, and you can decrease the size of your turn even more as your horse understands the exercise.
Counter Canter to Half Pirouette and Three-Quarter Pirouette toward the Corner
Another valuable lesson to teach the horse is to ride in counter canter down the long side, about five meters off the track, on the horse’s easier side. Ask for the half pirouette into the corner at the end of the long side.
Here you must ride the horse straight into the turn and straight again after the turn. By turning into the corner, the wall effectively holds the horse for you, and you only have to concentrate on keeping the canter jump active for four strides and not letting the horse stall out.
After you have worked on this exercise successfully for the half pirou¬ettes on both reins, you can go on to ride a three-quarter pirouette using the same method. This time you will do about six steps and continue on along the short end of the arena.
Problems in the pirouettes arise when the collected canter is not ener¬getic and balanced. If you have problems in the execution of the pirouette, return to the work of developing a good collected canter using the lateral movements and frequent changes between medium and collected canter on the circle. If you do not have sufficient energy, the horse will drop out of the canter, try to spin around, try to change legs behind, or resist. When that happens, the horse is only trying to tell you that he cannot do the pirouette in a poor canter.
In the early stages be content with small circles performed in a good rhythm and balance and only reduce the size of the pirouette as the horse gains sufficient strength and collection. Keep in mind you are collecting energy.
Once you can ride good half and three-quarter pirouettes, it is only a matter of time before you can ask for the full pirouette. Remember that it is the ability to keep the quality of the canter and the rhythm that makes truly good pirouettes possible.
• Walk Pirouette to Canter Pirouette
In the early days of musical freestyle competition, riders came up with the idea of doing a walk pirouette directly into the canter pirouette. Since then this has been not scored as a canter pirouette. The rules now require some steps of canter on a straight line before the pirouette. The walk pirouette to canter pirouette is not an easy exercise to pull off, but it can be of use to both you and the horse.
Ride a complete pirouette in walk, a 360 degree turn, ask for the can¬ter depart, and continue on around in a canter pirouette. There must be excellent collection and excellent impulsion to perform this movement, and it is best left until your horse is well established in his canter pirou¬ettes.