Just when you thought your show was expensive...article from USA re: Pony Finals

[SibeliusMB]

@SibeliusMB Chad managed to fit his huge self into my spaced and measured 3 trot rails at 4'6" at a canter, and cantered them all 1 stride in there. Swear to God!!!


I wish I had video. He had trotted it a couple times but decided to switch it up. Ha ha ha

Em

CHAAAAAAD!!!!

@CanteringCarrot right, but that's why we have ranges for walk poles, ranges for trot poles. For my horse, if I want to shorten slightly, trot poles are set more around 4', if lengthening I set at 5'. If I want push and to really activate the core, then we elevate alternate poles or both sides of the poles altogether. Same with canter poles to develop different types of canter, longer or shorter depending what the goal is. For context, it wouldn't ever occur to me to use trot poles as a canter exercise (unless you're Chad and you like to show off, LOL ).

 

[BunnyDog]

Re the poles thing and distance, I think shortening and lengthening the distance between poles can be a decent exercise, when done correctly.

Sometimes I'll set up 3 or so sets of poles (3 to 5 poles) around the school, and some will encourage my horse to lengthen, some to shorten, and some in the middle/normal. Raised poles have their place in this too.

Setting poles just out of my horses comfort zone taught him more about lengthening at the trot, while also having some level of suspension in his gait. He doesn't do this naturally ? so it depends on what you're trying to accomplish.

I fully agree with this and I saw a wonderful exercise that had 4 different groups of 4 spaced poles on different parts of the arena, all at different distances. It was a very useful tool.

That said I wouldn't love taking a horse through 3' poles as it's not the ideal, unless you were developing the passage.

Em

 

[RachelFerd]

Ok so I came back to give @Fieldlife the link to this video. It's the best I could find in terms of seeing what an automatic release is and how a well known US trainer, Bernie Traurig, teaches it.

I've seen a LOT of diversity in releases in the last 5 years. I am the show jumping steward at the Retired racehorse Project's Thoroughbred Makeover competition and I promise, especially last year when we held the '20 and '21 classes competition in one week long extravaganza, there are MANY variations on releases. Likewise at my shows in the 1m classes on up to the 1.40's I still see some big differences.

Including a few pics from my own riding and you can see while it's roughly the same there are some differences

That's an interesting video re. using driving rein position to improve release over a fence. Tempted to give that a try myself. I can sometimes get lazy with resting my knuckles in the neck.

 

[MagicMelon]

I used to visit jump and hunter shows several times a year to spectate when we used to go to the US. What I noticed was it seemed like a pricey affair and that was 20 years ago. The facilities you have are incredible, several indoor/covered and outdoor huge arena's, with seating, stunning stable blocks etc. Venues of that calibre are rare in the UK. It very much seemed like a rich persons sport in the US. I think generally we're a lot more involved in our horses here, we usually plait our own horses, dont have trainers with us etc. I also think horse prices there are far more than here - Im horrified by the prices of bog standard Riding Club type horses there!

 

[BunnyDog]

I used to visit jump and hunter shows several times a year to spectate when we used to go to the US. What I noticed was it seemed like a pricey affair and that was 20 years ago. The facilities you have are incredible, several indoor/covered and outdoor huge arena's, with seating, stunning stable blocks etc. Venues of that calibre are rare in the UK. It very much seemed like a rich persons sport in the US. I think generally we're a lot more involved in our horses here, we usually plait our own horses, dont have trainers with us etc. I also think horse prices there are far more than here - Im horrified by the prices of bog standard Riding Club type horses there!

Some of that is very true, but there are people like me who are the exceptions. We can afford the sport but we enjoy being the horsemen and doing the proper care for our animals.

For me, I would much rather plait/braid myself and I know his stall mess patterns so I know I would pick up quickly if something were amiss.

Em