Canter/pole exercises

Gamebird

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Anyone got any good ones? Our school's a bit gloomy for proper jumping at night but tbh it's the canter which needs the work, not the jump!

The two I use most at the moment are:

1) Two poles 6 (or whatever) strides apart, ride them in 5/6/7/8 strides etc.
2) A fan of 4 or 5 canter poles on a curve then 3 strides to a bounce of small uprights
3) I almost always leave a pole on a diagonal somewhere so that we can change leads over it when changing the rein.

On the flat I do lots of contra-bend on circles, shoulder-fore and leg yielding, all in canter; counter-canter movements and simple changes (though canter-walk isn't as good as walk-canter).

All ideas appreciated! :)
 

fairhill

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How about lying 4 poles which are centred on a 20m circle at 90 degrees to each other. You could then try and get the same number of trot and canter strides between each pole on both reins. Then make one into a x-pole or upright, then increase it so you do jump/pole/jump/pole round the circle until you are doing 4 jumps in a nice rhythm round the circle :)
 

KatB

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4 poles on a 20m circle, on at 12, 3, 6, 9 of the clock (if that makes sense!) Use the quarters to do something different. So counter flexion through one quarter, to a canter walk/walk canter transition in next quarter, to slight shoulder fore on the next 2 quarters, etc etc. Really helps focus and become disciplined with where and when you do something, and how accurate you can be.

Counter canter, being really disciplined in keeping the quality and the "jump" in the canter, serpentines in canter doing true/counter/true, then simple changes on the centre line each time you cross it, then changes. Again, helps keep the canter supple and keeps the jump in the step :) Rein back to canter can help engage too :)
 

kez1001

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The exercise fairhill suggested is good. my trainer had us do an exercise with the canter poles at all different distances once - really got your braincells going. Basically a line of poles with standard 12ft strides and then some only 10ft apart then 12ft again then up to 13/14ft if the arena isn't long enough do one side 12ft and 10ft and one side 12ft and 14ft. Improves the canter gears really well and makes you anh horse work.

My trainer then raised some poles to jumps so you went in 12ft stride to upright then 2 10ft strides to cross pole then two 12ft strides to upright then 2 14ft strides to Oxer! Very hard work! Obviusly we built up to this but it was quite hard and you need lots of poles!
 

diggerbez

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have two poles 4 strides apart down the long side and then on the short end have a tramline of poles in off the track = (this way round so you go through them) and then next to that have a pole as a normal trotting pole like this- I

on the other side of your school at E/B have a cross.

work on going round the outside of the track to your distance and putting a neat circle in the middle of your distance and then to the X pole. then next time round go trhough the tramlines to the distance and then the time after go over the normal trot pole to the distance- turn is clearly a lot tighter. you can play about with sometimes doing the circle and sometimes just doing the distance in one- or trying for 5 shorter strides too. obviously you can put the distance up to uprights as well.
 
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