Training over poles on the floor. A musing

charlimouse

charlimouse

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If you have a horse who jumps well, and is careful, but cannot seem to co ordinate themselves over a pole on the floor, do you push the issue? Or do you accept that actually for that horse polework is not benificial and leave it at that? Would this change regarding how old/experianced the horse was. For example would your answer be different if the horse was a green 5yo, compared to a 15yo experianced horse?

Just a musing following a conversation I had with a friend at the weekend.
 
Mine's pretty dyslexic about poles on the ground but can jump like a stag and is careful and agile. I wouldn't push it if everything else worked fine, I think quite a few horses are and know of top level jumpers which couldn't cope with pole work. We'll do slow and steady poles for muscle building, but she gets cak-footed and stressed with faster or more complex stuff. It's not clear with her whether it's cus she never learnt it or has always been thus. She's 6 and events pre novice, usually with DCs.
 
My horse is now 11 and showjumps at newcomers and events to novice. She cannot grasp the idea of polework. A single placing pole prior to a fence is fine, but random poles she has no respect for so I no longer use them. Raised trotting poles are better, but she is still fairly unrespectful of them. However, I have found that the better the canter the far less likely she is to step on/leap over random poles - so there the fault lies with me.....
 
I have a horse like this. I always thought it didn't much matter when he jumped well, who cares, right? Wrong.

I went to a pole work lesson with someone really good - he had several exercises set up round the school much like circuit training, and we went round each.

It proved where I had missed stuff out in my horse's basic education which was now coming back to bite us - simple stuff like the quality of trot walk transitions. Things that don't matter much when you don't mind about being placed but matter a hell of a lot when you're more experienced.

I would never neglect it again, nor would I ever again say it didn't matter because the horse jumps. Doesn't matter how old the horse is, I would sort it out. I'd do it with someone who really understands pole work and how to influence where the horse places it's foot in relation to the pole though.
 
I think I would persist with it (regardless of the horses age) though not make a big thing of a it either. I would agree with Spottedcats answer that it is good at highlighting gaps in the basic training.
 
I have one that finds it super easy, and uses it as an excuse to play games.

On a Lucinda Green clinic, she told me to stop with the basic exercises as my horse was clearly telling us all to 'F off' as she knew what she was doing!!
 
Used to work with a horse that was on BSJA Equine Pathway scheme.

He was consistently jumping double clears at 140 but couldn't grasp trot poles.
It was something the pathway decided they required so we spent hours working on it until he stopped jumping them.

I think i'd do it again regardless of the level, i guess it's like saying I won't work on flying changes because my horse can do counter canter, just because there are ways around it doesnt mean its not a part of the education.

Same as kids at school - you'd make sure they understood short division even if they could do long division, because it would set them up better.

I hope my very random musings make sense!!
 
I had an interesting jumping lesson recently with a new trainer at a RC thing who advised never to use poles in trot - canter yes but not trot as you are teaching the horse to split their legs over a pole when you want them come together to push off for the jump.

However, she viewed raised poles for improving flatwork differently.
 
Andy gets stupidly excited over poles, I think he sees them as a challenge like can I jump from one end to the other. How fast can I approach this without mum being able to stop and my favourite how high can I jump this.

I've given up now as soon as the jumps get above a decent height he behaves but with poles he's a nightmare he's ugly enough and old enough now to know what to do when he gets to a fence.
 
I had a 14yo - ex grade c showjumper, and had competed up to novice eventing. Could jump like a stag. His flat work was also pretty good, and would do basic extension and collection. He was built like a tank, and he was like a tank to drive.

He just didnt "get" trotting poles. He would tramp on them and trip over them, no matter how many times I tried them with him. I tried one exercise in the school to try and help the extension and collection - poles one side close together, poles the other side of the school further apart. He literally couldn't grasp the concept and fell over them all, tripped and trod on them. He did get slightly better with poles all at the same distance, but no significant improvement.

Whereas my other horse at the time (who was a lot bigger, and a lot less talented jumping wise) was absolutley amazing with pole work. You could set them at any distance, he would trot through them. You could canter him through them. If he trod on one, the next time round he would really be trying not to touch one. He could deal with them flat on the floor at angles to each other, raised ends, raised ends at angles to each other. What ever you threw at him with the poles, he just did it. However I think it helped that he was a lot "lighter" on his feet than the above horse, and when we were SJ, this one would naturally adjust himself to meet the fence on a good stride. He was also a lot easier to turn and ride.
 
the grey in my siggie HATED poles on the ground when jumping - as far as she was concerned they were only there to distract her from the fence and they increased the difficulty for her. She NEVER accepted them, she'd always overjump them and then get too close to the next fence because of it, OR take the placing pole as a take-off pole. It didn't matter if I walked, trotted slowly to it, or cantered in a very collected way, SHE dealt with the pole in her way. She was perfectly capable of using a 7 yard pole as a take-off pole from trot, no matter what I did to try to prevent it. Not great.
I totally gave up with poles on the ground with her, permanently. She just could not accept that they were there to make life easier, she stressed about them hugely. Even poles side to side to straighten her (tramline sort) stressed her and she threw herself sideways to land outside of them. No kidding.
I gave up with them because she was already a very competent experienced jumper (had done Fox and her first Grade C just before I bought her), she knew more about jumping than I did.
With a baby horse I'd persevere but with a scopey, clever, experienced, older horse such as her, I think it was the right thing to leave them out of her life, for both our sakes!
 
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