Gillian Higgins in Conversation with Ros Canter

During the 2026 conference we were lucky enough to welcome Ros Canter to the stage for a relaxed chat and Q&As with Gillian Higgins. In this article, Allison Lowther brings you the highlights which includes assessing asymmetry and how it may impact performance. As well as training young horses with longevity in mind and more.

Assessing Horses and Managing Movement

Q: How do you go about assessing your own horses and the management side of assessing movement?

Ros says:

When it comes to assessing horses, it’s a rolling scale and something we’re doing all the time. I’ve got a fantastic team at home who are constantly assessing the horses, whether they’re in the field or in the stable. I’m assessing each horse when I ride them, and my staff are assessing them when they handle them.

We’re always talking about how each horse is doing — whether they’re meeting expectations in their training to where they are weight-wise and everything like that. We piece the puzzle together to say: is this where we think we’re at, and how are we going to move forward?

Assessment comes in many different forms, but a lot of it is also done by feel and experience. Some people document everything. I jot brief notes in a diary, but most of it comes from communication, understanding our horses and knowing them inside out.

Good communication with your team is crucial so we all know exactly what’s going on. I try to remember what happened the day before and use that to create a plan for the next day — what worked and what needs adjusting.

Regular visits from professionals are also important. Your physio, your farrier — talking to them and working together as a team makes a big difference and is a huge part of success.

Managing Asymmetry

Q: Do you think asymmetry affects performance? Do you have a system for improving it?

Ros says:

Asymmetry is something we must constantly be aware of with our horses and can affect a horse's performance. It’s very much a journey that both horse and rider go on. It’s about continually asking questions.

For example, if a horse tends to drift to the right, I’ll ask: when does the horse drift? Why does it drift? Is it something I’m creating? How can I help improve it? It will also include conversations and further investigation with my wider team to discover any potential issues that may be causing any asymmetry.

Walter (Lordships Graffalo) struggles a lot with straightness. To be honest, he feels quite crooked to ride. He naturally collapses to the right and his saddle sits very much to the right as well.

When we’re jumping, because the saddle goes right, I tend to head off to the left, which creates quite a twist in my body. If you only watched me riding him, you might think the problem was me. But if you watch me on another horse, I ride a lot straighter — which shows that Walter creates the issue.

Ros explains how she has adapted her training and riding of Walter to help with his straightness

My challenge is working out how much that needs to change, how much he’s able to change, and how it affects his performance. We’ve worked very hard with the World Class team to investigate why he does this and also to try to make the saddle sit straight, but without much success, so we’ve decided to work with him rather than fight it.

Despite working hard in our training to encourage him to jump in the middle, Walter naturally likes to jump to the right. If you watch me show jump him, you’ll see that I jump each fence on the right-hand side. That actually helps me stay straight and helps him jump better.

If I tried to hold him on a straight line, I’d end up riding too much with my hands, which would affect the quality of the jump. Instead, I've learnt to adjust my approach so he ends up straight naturally rather than me forcing it.

Through working with him for so long, we honour the asymmetry, but we’re always micromanaging it at the same time.

Training for Symmetry

Q: How do you train horses to improve symmetry?

Ros says:

The aim in training is to make the horse feel as symmetrical as possible on both sides. Quite often that means adapting how you ride and train.

With Walter, for example, I ride left and right turns very differently. As I’ve said previously, he naturally likes to go right. If there’s a jump after a right turn, I know his right shoulder will tend to fall outwards.

To help with that I ride the turn with a slight renvers feeling. For a left turn I ride more with a travers feeling, encouraging him to stay upright through the turn. Being aware of where the horse’s body is positioned is really important.

Strengthening the Core

Q: What exercises do you use to strengthen a horse’s core?

Ros says:

Walter doesn’t have a naturally strong core. He has quite a big girth and likes to sink down into it. To help him we do a lot of work on hills.

The positive side is that his cross-country speed and efficiency come from his ability to gallop long and low. I definitely don’t want to take that away from him. It’s about knowing when he needs to lift himself up, for example during a dressage test, and when he can travel comfortably in his natural way.

With him, I do a lot of counter canter, especially counter-canter to walk transitions.

Walter would love to collapse into downward transitions as he finds it difficult to scoop himself up and use his core. This is where counter canter really helps — especially on large lines rather than tight circles.

Lots of walk transitions from counter canter have helped him enormously as it encourages him to use his core and collect. It’s also helped our flying changes, which used to be tricky because he struggled to collect and engage.

This work is quite difficult for him but there are days when I’ll push him slightly beyond his comfort zone in terms of stamina. It’s like going to the gym — sometimes you have an easy session, sometimes you work a bit harder and feel sore the next day, but that’s where improvement happens.

We balance those harder days with easier ones where we stretch and do light work. We’re also very lucky to have hills, so we do lots of trotting up hills. You can get a horse very fit by walking and trotting up steep hills. It doesn’t always have to be fast work — stamina comes from strength too.

The Role of the Rider

Q: What do you think your role is as a rider?

Ros says:

My job is to be the best rider possible so I can get the best out of my horses.

I’m not just getting on and riding — I’m thinking about how the horse thinks. What’s their learning style? Do they enjoy being in an arena? Would they prefer to work on grass? Do they love to gallop?

Ros Canter talks about her role as the rider and how it's important to adapt to each individual horse

For each horse, I have to think about how best to work with them individually. There’s a big psychological element to making the horse physically comfortable and feeling good about themselves.

Our responsibility is to bring out the best in our horses while ensuring they’re comfortable and happy.

I see myself a bit like a schoolteacher. Horses are herd animals and naturally follow a leader. Like a teacher, they need to feel comfortable and happy, but there must also be boundaries and respect.

They can relax in the field, but when they’re being ridden, that’s their “school hour”. The boundaries need to be clear so they understand what’s right and wrong.

It's also important to understand that all horses have different learning styles. Identifying them comes with experience and constantly evaluating and analysing. I see that as a really important part of my job and not treating every horse the same. Horses are like people or children: they all have different personalities.

There are different ways to bring out the best in each of them, and my job is to be flexible enough to adapt to their individual needs.

There are certain things every horse has to do. For example, they might need to perform a transition in a certain place in the arena — but there are many different paths to get there and that will depend on each horse.

Choosing a Future Star

Q: What do you look for in a young horse with potential?

Ros says:

This is a difficult question to answer, but if I get off a horse that I'm trying and want to ride it again, that’s a good sign. If I feel like I could improve them, that ticks a box too.

Conformation matters, but balance is very important to me. A horse with natural balance, like Walter, really catches my attention.

Cross-country is the phase I find the hardest. I don’t particularly enjoy galloping at five-star speed towards a fixed fence — it feels very fast!

Walter, however, can gallop downhill at five-star speed and still feel balanced. That feeling is what I now look for in all my horses.

If you are looking at a young horse, it's always difficult to know how they will turnout. Walter, when I first got him you may not of thought he would be a top event horse. He looked quite short in the neck, but with correct training he developed muscle and his topline improved so much that his neck now looks completely different. Also, his right fore swings a little and his feet are different shapes and sizes, but from the beginning he had balance and made me feel safe. I felt confident riding forward to a fence, which is very important to me.

Even now he’s still developing. I couldn’t have predicted how good he would become, but there was something special about him from day one.

Ensuring Longevity

Q: How do you ensure longevity in your horses’ careers?

Ros says:

I’m very fortunate to work every day with my mum, who is simply a horse lover. She grew up riding ponies and is also a farmer, so she brings those two worlds together.

She’s always believed horses should be turned out as much as possible. We've never been allowed to have a horse walker at home, because she didn't want us to start cutting corners and think it's okay not to turn horses out because we have a walker. She's been passionate about that from day one. Turning horses out as much as possible has been and will continue to be a huge part of how my horses are kept.

My horses work a maximum of five days a week and have at least two days off, often more if I’m competing.

It’s also very important that horses are ridden well every time they’re ridden. I do have help schooling now, but the people riding them have been part of the team for many years and understand our system.

I’m always questioning myself when I ride and trying to stick to a plan — although plans do change.

Sometimes you have a harder training day, like a tough gym session. It’s about the balance between mental and physical training.

With young horses, for example, if I’m teaching them something like jumping skinnies, I might work on it three days in a row, then give them several days off in the field.

Balancing Stretching and Strengthening

Q: How do you balance stretching and strengthening elements in training?

Ros says:

Every horse has a different programme and will depend very much of their conformation, where they are in their training. We don’t follow the same routine with all of them.

For example, one of my other five-star horses, Izilot DHI is naturally very uphill and finds it very easy to go in a nice frame, so we do a lot of stretching with him to encourage him to lengthen and relax. He also wouldn't find it easy to gallop for 11 minutes around a five-star cross country track. I have to be careful with his fitness work and keep it interesting. I want him to go to a big competition thinking he's the 'big guy' and feeling important. He'll quite easily get demoralised galloping on his own. During his fitness work on the gallops he will go with another horse. Starting with him behind and then slowing the lead horse down so he overtakes and thinks he won the race! This makes him feel good about himself.

Walter on the other hand is different — he finds the collected work physically harder, so his sessions might be shorter. He might stretch at the beginning, come up for 10 minutes of more collected work, and if he does that well he’s finished.

Understanding each horse as an individual is key and making the work fun for them.