Pole work

K

Keren@serendipity

Active Member
May 26, 2015
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I had the funniest lesson with Scout tonight. We did a great exercise with ground poles today, we basically rode an oval down the three quarter lines so we came away from the arena fence. We had three working trot poles down one long side and one trot pole on each short side. The two single ones were only half the length of a normal trot pole. Basically the exercise works on strengthening your outside aids, otherwise you miss the poles. After several goes over the pattern, we raised one end of the two single ones and the middle one of the trio. Suddenly the exercise gets a lot harder!

Poor Scout managed the exercise fine while the poles were on the ground but when we raised them, oh dear! Poor bugger didnt know what to do with himself. First he took a HUGE leap over the first pole! Took him over again at a walk and then a trot and he did ok. He's a funny horse, not very confident and he fell apart when he knocked one of the poles. Then he began refusing, and running out. Several cat leaps from a standstill were entertaining! After lots and lots of work and repetition we finally got a nice rhythm and he went over the pattern nicely again.

Oh my goodness though working with him is lots of hard work! My core muscles and my legs are so painful! It was a great workout and lots of fun :D
 
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I would be inclined to ditch the single poles, or not raise. It's already hardwork having them there if you approach from the quarter lines.
I would expect mine to trip over those to be honest, as shorter poles rise higher.
 
The idea is to make the exercise harder once they are doing it well - the three poles test your outside aids down a straight long side, the single poles test your outside aids on a turn. The fact they are shorter makes even more accuracy required. Only once they are going well over the flat poles do you raise them. Every pony yesterday eventually did the exercise successfully with no issues - mine was the greenest and has recently been learning to jump hence his confusion but he did understand and went around kindly in the end.

It works on your outside aids and your straightness and rhythm, and ability to steer the body of the horse not just the head,because if you just steer the head you will miss the turn over the single short poles
 
And yes its definitely hard work for the ponies - but again thats not a bad thing, really gets them thinking about where their feet are and lifting their backs
 
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