Young horse clumsy over ground poles

Spyda

Spyda

Well-Known Member
Joined
30 October 2005
Messages
5,148
Location
U.K.
Visit site
My rising five year old WBxTB seems incapable of walking over a pole on the ground without scuffing the front of her front hooves on it. This is at walk under saddle and in walk/trot on the lunge. After a short session she'll have pole paint all over the front of her front hooves. She is working actively and IS looking down at the poles - so why does she KEEP hitting them with the front wall of her front feet???? Any ideas how to help her stop it! It's becoming ridiculous now :rolleyes:
 
Hi,
I retrain TB's off the track and while most will are quite careful you do get some that just literally 'walk through' the pole my warmblood also did this for a while, too be honest until the jump was up to about 2'6 he didn't respect it enough to pick up his feet! anyway what i would do is slightly raise the end of each pole so ones raised on the left and ones raised on the right only by a couple of inches so its higher one side than the other so that it gives her something to focus and hopefully pick her feet up. hope it helps
 
StormyGale said:
Hi,
I retrain TB's off the track and while most will are quite careful you do get some that just literally 'walk through' the pole my warmblood also did this for a while, too be honest until the jump was up to about 2'6 he didn't respect it enough to pick up his feet! anyway what i would do is slightly raise the end of each pole so ones raised on the left and ones raised on the right only by a couple of inches so its higher one side than the other so that it gives her something to focus and hopefully pick her feet up. hope it helps
Click to expand...

Totally agree, my boy will not respect anything too low but as soon as you raise it a bit he pays attention.
 
aren't they weird - he jumps upto 1.25m at the mo and hasnt ever touched a pole jumping that height yet (touch wood!) yet you move it down to 2'3 just for a practice and hes falling all over the place lol. Don't worry too much about your horse touching ground poles it is good but some just generally have more respect over something higher mines great at grids and bounces but a pole on the ground ah thats nothing - so why bother - it doesn' t have any reflection on what time of jumper they will be trust me!
 
My 17hh+ Dutch warmblood was intelligent but so clumsy as a young horse. Every hack he went on I deliberately rode him slowly on a loose-ish rein over ground that made him concentrate (verges/plough/slopes etc).I didnt give him too much help to balance and he became much more 'responsible' for where he put his feet. He went on to be successful at 2* and graded advanced so he definately benefitted from the 'hoof/eye' coordination exercises.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top