May 2022 - What's your favorite exercise right now??

BunnyDog

BunnyDog

Well-Known Member
Joined
20 November 2017
Messages
720
Location
USA
Visit site
Hi Everyone,

Since we come from different backgrounds I am curious what your favorite exercise to improve your horse is tickling your fancy at this moment?

Doesn't matter which discipline.... what is working and what is it meant to teach the horse and rider?

I can tell you that we have started putting a single rail on the ground outside a line of fences even with the actual fence itself so he can practice the distance without the height. For a horse who has not loved pole work in the past, he's really getting into it and it's become a nice tool to work on his stride length and it's a nice thing to have it work.


So what is working for you and your horse???

Em
 
I do a fair bit of leading over raised poles - I don't entirely trust him not to fall flat on his face if I ride him over raised poles so leading is a good way of getting the core working. Exercise wise, I do quite a variety but I do like riding diamond shapes and just using the jumps that are left up in the arena to make shapes around with some lateral work moving round them as well. I do a lot of hacking but quite often may have a little play like that in the school just to keep things moving.
 
Teardrops (half 10m circle in corner then change rein back to the track) and centre lines. Also forward and back within a gait. Basically making up little sequences of movements moving from circles / corners to straight lines.
Pony likes pole work so we intersperse a small line of poles as a reward for being so clever.
 
I've been doing an in-hand pole exercise, whereby you line up 4+ poles end-to-end in a straight line, and get the horse to do a shallow slalom over it, ideally stepping over with their closest front leg each time instead of crossing the forelegs. It's supposed to help with lateral balance and proprioception as well as general core strength from the lifting, as you can raise the poles as well.

My horse seems to enjoy it and I can see visible improvement each week, so it's quite satisfying to do.

Great idea for a thread!
 
AntiPuck said:
I've been doing an in-hand pole exercise, whereby you line up 4+ poles end-to-end in a straight line, and get the horse to do a shallow slalom over it, ideally stepping over with their closest front leg each time instead of crossing the forelegs. It's supposed to help with lateral balance and proprioception as well as general core strength from the lifting, as you can raise the poles as well.

I have tried that with mine but we struggled! Must try it again and work on it.
Click to expand...
 
AntiPuck said:
I've been doing an in-hand pole exercise, whereby you line up 4+ poles end-to-end in a straight line, and get the horse to do a shallow slalom over it, ideally stepping over with their closest front leg each time instead of crossing the forelegs. It's supposed to help with lateral balance and proprioception as well as general core strength from the lifting, as you can raise the poles as well.

My horse seems to enjoy it and I can see visible improvement each week, so it's quite satisfying to do.

Great idea for a thread!
Click to expand...

We did this under saddle at a pole work clinic recently and it's great - I must do it more often! As usual, I was very disciplined for the week after the clinic then promptly forgot about it ?

My whizzy baby horse is at the start of his schooling 'career' so it's all pretty dull here. Our focus is maintaining a rhythm then working on relaxation and contact through basic school exercises - diagonals and centre / three-quarter lines are a current favourite to build his straightness. Also basic trot-walk-trot without him getting tense and excited (a typical PRE - he thinks an engaged walk must be preparation for a piaffe...even though he's never done one of those!).
 
Suppling work in counter canter. We've always had a decent counter canter, but trying to polish it off now. Bending and moving in all directions, forward and back, and just being able to make various adjustments without him thinking that a flying change is coming. He's gotten super about waiting and relaxing. Today he aced all of his counter canter work going right (on the left lead). We popped in a beautiful flying change (polishing those up too), and called it a day. Will move on to the other direction (a tad more difficult) on the next ride because he was feeling so good and I just wanted to end there.

Basically just trying to make it all feel like buttah. I want our counter canter to be as good as our true canter. It's good for strength and balance as well.

Keeping the power and expression while not having too much tension is also a focus and a fine balance. I feel like even if he does things, whether it's flying changes, a half-pass, a canter pirouette, etc. We can always aspire to make them the best they can be. This also helps us gain max points when competing.
 
ATM I am working on getting and maintaining a good collected canter. I've been using a 10m circle in walk or a half walk piri to establish a really good collected walk then using that to go into the canter., which is then usually a good collected canter. We then do three loop serpentines, either using CC or a simple change through trot or walk whilst trying to keep that good collected canter going. It's hard work for both of us and there's lots to work on to keep the quality of the canter.
 
I like riding squares in walk, trot and canter for shoulder control at the moment. Also leg yielding 5m off the wall and back for suppling and further shoulder control, also good for checking if they aren't sticking to the fence.

When I want to do more advanced work, I switch between shoulder in and travers on a circle in trot and canter.
 
AntiPuck said:
I've been doing an in-hand pole exercise, whereby you line up 4+ poles end-to-end in a straight line, and get the horse to do a shallow slalom over it, ideally stepping over with their closest front leg each time instead of crossing the forelegs. It's supposed to help with lateral balance and proprioception as well as general core strength from the lifting, as you can raise the poles as well.

My horse seems to enjoy it and I can see visible improvement each week, so it's quite satisfying to do.

Great idea for a thread!
Click to expand...
I’ve been doing this ridden and spread them out a bit to give more variation as then I can serpentine over or between them, leg yield between ride parallel to the pole and leg yield back.
 
Quite a common one, I think, but I've been using 4 poles on a 20m circle at B/E quite a bit- it's good because we can do pole work on the circle, on a serpentine and shallow loops etc. The theory is to a) engage the hind end a bit by working over the poles to help with muscle strength and b) to make pole work a bit less exciting as he doesn't know when/whether the poles will be used etc. It definitely helps keep him more engaged and focused in the school to have some poles out.
 
So this was yesterday's discovery and my added proof that my new to me trainer has picked up on Cudo's and my issues quickly and is finding great ways to work on both of us.

This sounds very simple which is likely why it's brilliant. So in short:

Me: When you pull me back to gymnastics, by position is very strong and a good independent seat and giving hand. On a course I lose a piece of that solid base. (in various ways, none really discussed in detail)

Cudo: very solid in attacking and leaving out a stride. Coming round to adding and using himself more from the base. Is VERY respectful of gymnastics, but does get a bit of a motor going for a whole course. Will come back but not his "go to" thing.

The challenge. We did a progressive gymnastic on one side of the ring to keep my position fluid and keep him bouncy. Then we cantered away and did a single jump and then a line of jumps and tried to keep my position and his 'listening' side of the brain. Remember, Cudo is harder to school at home, at my trainers, anywhere that is not a show. He knows it and would prefer that we just go do our thing properly. LOL.

It worked well for me because I could keep my equitation longer. However my reins slipped a bit in the 4 stride line, and though I did refuse to relent an "let" him take the wholly long 3 stride, it wasn't the prettiest clip in this video. We did it twice after and improved it a lot. But that isn't on video. Sorry. And it worked well for Cudo since he dropped rails in the gymnastic where he tried to go more forward than the distance would fit.

It's a short video and I would caution this is not perfection. It is however learning and improving.


Emily
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top