After months of intense struggle with canter transitions with my gelding, Digger, I have finally realized it is not that I am a crap rider, he has an actual, physiological issue : (.  I was just not able to pick up on something so subtle earlier.  He is not "lame" at any gait, but about a week ago, I started to TRY to explain to my trainer that I was losing his hind end through transitions.  She detailed what I must be doing wrong, and I began to try try try to fix it by fixing myself and fiddling some MORE with saddle fit.  The more I paid attention to it, the more I realized that he could not keep his hind end underneath him through the transition.  In fact, to the left, I was getting fakey bend through the front of his body, but he was always swinging his back end to the outside to avoid really using his right hind hock.  So I started calling him out on his evasiveness, really keeping my outside leg on him, and keeping my dressage whip in my outside hand and tapping when he started to swing out.  My result was squealing and kicking out.  

 Kudos to you for figuring out what was actually going on - even if it did take you a while That's the trouble with horses - they can't TELL us what's wrong, we have to work it out ourselves, just by observation.

I think you're wise to delay your show ambitions for a while.  I hope the Adequan works for him and he's soon comfortable and sound and going well.

 

Jayne-Admin:

 they can't TELL us what's wrong

Hopefully the Adequan will help.  Yes it's expensive, but it's worth it's weight in gold for limbering up a stiff horse, and cheaper than any quality feed through.  When I first had to have Boy's hocks injected I took him up because he looked a tad off on his left front and he quit picking up his left lead.  His hocks were sore causing him to overload his front end, making him sore in his heels.  After I looked back on it, there were several things he was doing, telling me he was sore.  I just didn't see it.