Help with pole work – distances?

[Jingleballs]

I want to set up some poles/grids tonight to try to work on collecting pony’s canter stride – I’ve got that book 101 jumping exercises which has loads of good ideas but I can never correctly judge the distances for pole work especially as I’m having to just measure it out in my strides,

So for a bounce how many strides?
For a 1 stride double how many?

Pony is 15h if that makes a difference?

From that I should be able to work out how many strides I need to make up the course I’m planning (sort of teardrop course with 3 poles on the straight line and 2 on the diagonal.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Vikki89]

Roughly 2 strides (human) for landing 4 strides for 1 horse canter stride and 2 strides for take off so -
1 stride double = 8 human strides
Bounce = 4 human strides

I think thats right.

 

[spotty_pony]

My horse is also 15hh

I tend to do:

Bounce stride = 3 human strides as he finds 4 strides a bit long
1 stride = 7 human strides
2 strides = 11 human strides
3 strides = 15 human strides

and for longer distances, just add 4 human strides for every extra horse stride onto that.

Hope this helps.

 

[Jingleballs]

Thanks - I think 3 strides may be better as he also struggles with a longer stride and will launch himself over the pole rather than shorten his stride and put in an extra one!

 

[Kenzo]

My mare is only around 15 hands..maybe a bit bigger but she has quite choppy short strides, she can't manage 4 human strides (for a horse stride) and finds 2 strides (human ones) for take off a bit much, however she tends to land a bit further out. I've found using 2 giant steps (looks a bit strange when your pacing them out in your school ) but it works bang on...I suppose that's 3 normal human ones though when you think about it.

You just need to play around a bit with some canter poles to see whats best before setting up a your grid.