Making the arena more fun

helloamys

helloamys

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Any tips on making the arena more fun for us?
We have trotting poles and I've put them in a fan shape and a straight line but ran out of ideas.

Anyone have any suggestions for more shapes/exercises?

I can't wait to ride in the field! :D
 
if your doing canter work you could put 2 poles 5 strides appart and do it in 4 strides then 6 strides, and try and ask for canter from trot exactly on the first pole and back to trot on the second, or walk to canter instead of trot to canter if thats to easy (i do alot of work in canter at the momnet as the pony im schooling at the moment only has one speed of canter- flat out- and you have to growl at her to get into it and it takes ages to bring her back, crazy pony!)

Or put thwe poles in zig-zags to get him really thinking about wheres hes putting his feet- like this if it makes any sence?: -/-\-/-\-/-\-
 
depending on your horse's level and fitness....

experiment with some lateral work.... leg yield, half pass, shoulder in (makes doing gates out on hacks much easier as well as keeping them interested in the school)

when i feel i'm getting a bit stale, i look through the BD tests for inspiration. We've got a dressage comp at the end of the month anyway so it makes sense for us to practise some of the movements before trying to string them all together in a test.

we're currently working on serpentines, in particular half 10m circles across the school from B-E, in walk and trot. and varying transitions - walk/halt, halt/trot, trot/halt, walk/canter ect.

as for canter work..... we're working on cantering around the school then across the diagonal to x, doing a trot transition, then back to canter in the following corner. His last owner had just started doing flying changes with him when i bought him so he anticipates the change at x and goes disunited..... i personally dont feel his canter is balanced enough to tackle flying changes yet, and this particular movement is in one of our prelim tests at the end of the month so we'd better practise doing it nicely!

hope that helps, x
 
I made a square out of cones today. made a really nice change. They were about 5 metres apart and we practiced bending small and increasing circles and all sorts. Put a pole in the center for something different too
 
Set up 2 cones somewhere in the arena. Grab a old broom, and a inflatable ball and see how well you do pushing it around with the broom, and scoring goals. You'd be surprised how it will help your balance! If you have a horse sized ball, have them push it around all over the arena...wherever it goes, you go. That will get you some different patterns and both you and your horse will have something different to concentrate on! ;)
 
Thanks for all the idea, we will be trying them next week :)

He's still abit green and unbalanced in canter which we're working on, but the serpentines/transitions sound good

And I'm off to buy a big ball too, although he'll probably by scared of it :rolleyes:
 
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