my horse rushes his canter transitions. i tend to brace for them and that ends up making him go faster. how can i have smoother transitions and relax?
thanks

Focus on your seat, lean back and breathe. Don't get tense with your shoulders and have a soft, following hand. Do only short portions of canter e.g. on a circle until you can keep the pace in control. You can also do leg-yielding from the quarter-line increasing the arena to the track and ask for the canter when you get to the track, just remember to give inside rein to leave space for the shoulder. If your horse tends to run in downward transitions, train him to be lighter with walk-halt, trot-walk, trot-halt transitions.

use half halts to balance him in upward and downward transitions, when you feel him rush ha lf halt.

I personally mostly do walk/canter transitions when I flat(which works wonders on well trained horses) when they walk they dont know your nessisarily going to ask for canter so no anticipating or rushing

to stop the rushing, relax your shoulders. Ask with you legs, then when you get that first canter stride lean back and use you seat to keep the horse going.

have a lunge lesson with your coach. This way she is the one asking for canter, and you just relax. When you get the hang of it, she can ask you to tell the horse to canter while in that relaxed frame of mind. Of course, lunge the horse unmounted to make sure she will canter on the lunge relaxed!

another problem i have is he tends to lean on his forehand sometimes. any suggestions how i can rebalance him?
Thanks!

The half halt is your best friend!!!

thanks to everyone for your help!! our canter transtions are MUCH smoother now