Foam Trot Poles - why??

jules9203

jules9203

Well-Known Member
Joined
21 November 2009
Messages
601
Location
Hampshire
www.pensdellequestrian.org.uk
Hi - as title really.

I heard of these for the first time today. Could someone explain why they would be used? I always thought trot poles were used to get horses to lift their legs. Surely if they are foam they will not encourage horses to step over them (possibly be able to step on them) and also they will be so light they will role and move in the wind unless they are secured? Apologies if I am missing something obvious!
 
Also if you have a horse that lands on them, because they roll (hence the liking for square poles/planks instead) they can cause injury.
 
Lol, mine arrived today, yet to try them.
I bought them because we have to move poles in and out of the school if you want to use them (rather then them always being out), so the foam makes it much more manageable and I might actually do pole work.
They are square rather then round so if a horse does stand on them they won't role and cause injury.
Heavy enough not to blow away.
Won't break/snap if they are clouted. (Alot of our poles are old and are beginning to rot. Have had a couple of breakages this year. Annoying and dangerous)
Will try them out tomorrow but hoping they will be stiff enough to do raised pole work.
Can be used as ground lines for jumps.
Bright colours!
 
Ooh I was thinking about something like this just this week! Went to a sj lesson and the ins there has two really handy things for jumping, which make so much sense and made me wonder about finding something similar - lightweight 12ft plastic rail to easily measure strides, and flat rectangular foam ‘poles’ she uses for placing poles or pole work. Where did you see these ones?
 
My trainer has some flat foam 'planks' that she uses for pole work. They seem to work really well, my horse just treats them the same as normal poles but when she did misjudge one and stepped on it, it didn't move under her foot. She didn't do it again so no different from a normal pole.
She also has square poles that she uses for placing and ground poles which work really well, I think she has them at a certain length so can use them to measure a distance if needed.
 
mavandkaz said:
Lol, mine arrived today, yet to try them.
I bought them because we have to move poles in and out of the school if you want to use them (rather then them always being out), so the foam makes it much more manageable and I might actually do pole work.
They are square rather then round so if a horse does stand on them they won't role and cause injury.
Heavy enough not to blow away.
Won't break/snap if they are clouted. (Alot of our poles are old and are beginning to rot. Have had a couple of breakages this year. Annoying and dangerous)
Will try them out tomorrow but hoping they will be stiff enough to do raised pole work.
Can be used as ground lines for jumps.
Bright colours!
Click to expand...

I've never seen these before.. Interested to know where you bought yours mavandkaz!
 
JFTD said:
Kramer sell foam noodley things and connectors so that when you're done using them on the ground as trot poles, you can connect them together into obstacles, or even make them into big hoops to jump through like in agility. Can't do that with a normal pole :p
Click to expand...

that sounds brilliant :cool:

I rarely use round poles on the ground because of the potential for injury with my clumsy ones :rolleyes:. I only do poles as variety for my dressage cob and as she's the first horse I've ever got to small tour I'm extremely paranoid about hurting her doing unnecessary stuff! if she gets it wrong she stumbles all over round poles. I think the foam poles sound like a great idea.
 
Bernster said:
Oh nice one. I got lots of trampoline poles when I googled, and one set that was £35 so these are a bit cheaper. Be interested to hear what you think as am v tempted. How many did you get? I might only need 2/3. So much easier to move around the arena too.
Click to expand...


Three of us at the yard have gone in together, so we have 10.
They worked quite well, nice and chunky so horse really needs to pick their feet up. My boy isn't great at pole work and tends to rush and just put his legs anywhere, so a fair few did get trodden on and a couple moved, but it would be the same with normal poles and at least there is no risk of injury.
The plastic covering seems to be pretty tough so hopefully will last.
I could easily carry 5 at once, although was a bit like carrying giant spaghetti (they won't be stiff enough to use as raised poles in the traditional sense as will sag)
They are still a bit bent from where they are folded up to post, but were already straitening out after an hour.
So far so good 😊
IMG_20181024_154238.jpg
 
I lost power in one side of my body in an accident where a horse landed on a round pole doing a tiny jump and it flipped us completely 180 degrees so he landed on me

I just saw the foam poles for the first time at a kids lesson a few weeksn ago. the only downside i can see to them is that when a pony stood on them they can completely lift up both ends into a v shape. I had a kid on one of my ponies doing the lesson and she got the fright of her life when it hit her on side of her leg. She's a hardy pony so it didn't phase her, but if it was a very young horse or a tb they might get traumatised a bit.
 
paddi22 said:
I just saw the foam poles for the first time at a kids lesson a few weeksn ago. the only downside i can see to them is that when a pony stood on them they can completely lift up both ends into a v shape. I had a kid on one of my ponies doing the lesson and she got the fright of her life when it hit her on side of her leg. She's a hardy pony so it didn't phase her, but if it was a very young horse or a tb they might get traumatised a bit.
Click to expand...

My 12 year old cob , old enough to know better, has had a complete meltdown over this sort of pole movement with the foam poles. All poles are now dangerous. Not sure how to recover the situation to be honest.
 
i reckon it would be fairly straightforward to make theses yourself. form, PVC material and a sewing machine? you could even 'add' an amount of sand to them to add extra weight, if your worried about then flipping up??
 
ester said:
really? I don't see it that the weight of the horse is hugely important more the properties of the foam so this foam must be very different to the foams I know.
Click to expand...

It's the foam roller grade foam so fairly dense stuff.
 
At the end of the day, freak accidents can happen with anything (or nothing)... But sand weighting sounds like a reasonable solution if excessive bending is an issue. Bricks does sound a bit like weaponising them - though I'd be more concerned the pony spooked and went sideways and stood on a concealed brick than catapulted them.
 
Ah thanks Tallyho, bricks was maybe a bit rough and ready as yes wouldn't want them standing on them was thinking what I had to hand!, sand sounds like a better idea.
 
I bought some fence rails recently - half round but with a flat edge/bottom. Substantially cheaper than any sort of jump pole, although maybe not normal pole length as I had the rail cut in half to fit in the lorry! Less likely to cause injury or roll away if being used for polework.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top