Lunging over poles...

[wench]

Yet another lunging question! This is not something I have done much of, and wondered what sort of exercises other people do with their horses when lunging with poles.

I've done a scout round on the net, and got some good ideas for exercises, but HHO always useful.

Do you put any "gadgets" on the horse? I'm a bit loathe to just let my horse lunge on a headcollar/bridle, as she will giraffe. I was thinking of using my kavalkade lunging aid, so I can get stretchy, but not restrictive?

 

[Wheels]

I never lunge with artificial aids but even if I did I probably wouldnt use it for pole work, at least to start with as the horse needs freedom of the neck to stretch over the poles, you are aiming for a lift of the belly which in turn lifts the back

There are a few pole exercises I like, some involve the handler having to run too. I like double spaced trotting poles as these can be used for canter poles too. Single poles at 12, 3, 6, 9 and aim for the same number of strides and same bend throughout the exercise, a fan of poles and going over different parts of the poles on each circuit to get shortening and lengthening of strides

 

[Sol]

I spent loads of time lunging Dan over poles the other year (before we moved... and I now have no poles which is so frustrating as it really helps him).
We did 'normal' things like poles on a fan or straight line, up to 5 in a row usually, 4 poles at 12/3/6/9 on the circle, spiralling in & out, in trot & canter (he found this very hard work, especially when I moved them up into small jumps!), 2-3 poles in a line end to end along the centre line, with alternate ends raised (so makes a bit like a W shape), which you can either lead along in an S pattern or I lunged over, and then some days I added triangles or fans onto the end, so I had a pole playground!! And could lunge around/over different parts. The triangles were great for Dan as he had to adjust every time he came to them, and you can move where you stand so the circle is constantly moving which helped keep him awake.

Sorry if these are huuuuge but resizing never seems to work for me!
One of our 'pole play grounds' which allowed walk/trot/canter without having to faff about but could vary lots too:

Walking along/over the poles like in a S pattern. I never used to 'lead' Dan as he'd use me for support, the space used to make him use himself much more.

Triangles!

And occasional steering malfunctions...

I lunged him just off his headcollar, this works best for us still. I wouldn't want to use any 'gadgets' as I think there's too much chance of them getting caught up, or even causing a fall if the horse does something unpredictable or isn't 100% with the idea of lunging over poles (took Dan a few goes to work it out!) For him though it was mostly getting things that made him think about where his feet were, he's a clumsy creature! Once he started thinking more though, I saw a lot of improvements in his way of going, for sure.