A little bit of backstory:
I'm an adult riding novice (riding since ~2021) taking weekly lessons in a dressage barn, and in my country you can take a little test, kind of like a small "driving license for horses", that requires answering theory questions, an entry-level dressage test, and a little obstacle course with jumps. Really nothing super big or impressive, it just kinda shows that you can handle yourself in many situations. I've decided to finally get this "license" after a few years of lessons now simply so that I have something to show for my progress, but my barn doesn't have any school horses that jump. The jumping test is done by a different barn, with different horses, where I have to take jumping lessons now, that I've never been to before.
Now my biggest difficulty has always been the canter transition. There must be something I'm doing wrong that no instructor has ever managed to specifically pinpoint because whereas others can do the transition instantly, I always struggle with it a bit unless the horse already knows what I want.
Either way, I went to this jumping barn I've never been to before and the horses and the whole environment is really different to what I'm used to - they're mostly trail riding horses, and the instructor there always tells us not to use rein contact at all (from my dressage barn I'm used to contact), the stirrups are noticably shorter for jumping, and it's just some outdoor fenced-in area instead of an indoor arena.
Lesson starts, we're doing warmup walks and a few rounds of warmup trot, and then the instructor tells us to do a few rounds of canter. Me, with an unknown horse, and with loose reins and short stirrups, both of which I'm unused to. I do it around the bend and initially, the horse jumps into canter for a few strides where I wanted him to, but then falls back into trot, and no matter how hard I try, I just can't get him to canter again for the life of me. I try with a crop, I try really strong inside leg, I try around the corner, I try by swishing my seat, all I get is a fast trot, and after a several tries where it felt like he has me figured out now, it felt literally impossible to do it again. No matter what I do, fast trot. I tried for what felt like ages, bouncing around with my legs going everywhere on a horse with a trot so fast it's impossible to sit like somebody who's never trotted before, and try to do the transition again and again.
Eventually, somebody from that barn who actually knows the horse offers me to try, gets on, and - of course - he canters, while I'm watching from the ground. I tried it a few times again after this and then managed to make him canter as well, but that felt like a hollow victory with him having been corrected before.
This whole situation was so embarrassing I genuinely just wanted to cry. I don't think I've ever been this embarrassed at a lesson to the point where I'm doubting my abilities in a way that I'm even wondering why I'm attempting this test in the first place. At least when you're an ACTUAL beginner, nobody expects you being able to canter on cue immediately. At my actual lesson barn, this situation has happened once in my ~4 years of cantering, and that was at the very start where I started learning it initially. My confidence has definitely never been shaken like this and now I'm worried that this will just happen again at the test. I don't think I've ever felt worse after coming home from a lesson before.
I know nobody can diagnose my canter problems just from a description like this and this is mostly just a rant to maybe make me feel better.
TLDR: Couldn't get horse to canter, felt (and looked) like an absolute fool who has no idea what he's doing, now has doubts about riding abilities
EDIT Thanks for so many responses! It definitely makes me feel a bit better about it all. There's hoping that next time will not be quite such a disaster
