Pole Work :D

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CosmicKid

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Anyone know any different Pole work exercises to help muscle up my boy and exercise to get him bending too! so far for him its just been trotting poles and raised poles down the middle of our riding field, weaving in and out of poles etc and id quite like to shake things up a bit as he gets bored doing the same exercises all the time!

anyone got any fun little exercises? as long as not too complex as for the next month i'll only have 4 poles haha!:)

Hope you all had a merry Christmas! :D
 
Good one mudmonkey, try and get the same amount of strides between each pole. Then lengthen and shorten strides between. You could also do some transitions between poles and halt over them. It's difficult with just four poles. We do something called Equigym and we use 20 or so poles.
 
I know three. First, poles on a fan shape so you ride them on a circle. Normal stride in the middle, collection at the tight end of the fan, extension at the wide end. Second, poles in two L shapes, one L upside down so you have two corners to negotiate. Make the distance between the two Ls wider for a novice horse and closer for a more experienced horse. Negotiated the corners without touching the poles, halting before starting each corner and after and during if necessary. Really teaches them to gather themselves up and put the weight on the hocks. Third, a square of four poles. Trot or walk in, halt in the box before leaving it. Halt in the box then either turn on the forehand or pirouette before leaving it. Oh one more, two Ls one nested inside the other to make an L shaped channel. Use a combination of rein back and turn on the forehand to go backwards through the channel.
 
We do one called Grandma's knitting which is great for bends. Make a big + sign out of four poles. ideally touching in the middle - but you can spread it out if pony is really stiff. Now - read carefully -it sounds complex but is actually quite simple to do. Just hard to explain....

Come straight over pole 1 and immediately turn to the outside performing a small circle between pole 1 and 2 before coming back to pole 2 straight. Turn outside and circle again, then straight over pole 3 etc. It looks a bit like one of those old fashioned knitting dolls.

So to put it another way - off the left rein cross the pole straight in front of you. Circle right (about 10m if you can). Immediately on completing the circle turn left 90 degrees and cross pole 2. repeat...

hope that makes sense...?
 
You can get books with ideas for pole work in, very handy as you take it with you when your setting up!
 
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