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‘Aim to do this straightforward exercise to score 10 out of 10’: how Harry Meade uses polework to improve suppleness
In the first part of a training series with Harry Meade, the five-star event rider explains how he uses a simple exercise over four poles on a circle to create suppleness and encourage the horse to use their back in a soft way
During winter, Harry Meade’s training involves plenty of polework, as well as the water treadmill. Before knuckling down to whatever daily exercise is planned, all his horses head out for a 15-minute hack around the village, so they have warmed up and loosened off before starting more serious work.
The horses have plenty of variety, from hacking around the undulating Cotswold countryside to polework, schooling, jumping and the early throes of fitness work. Harry believes in working on a range of different surfaces, never drilling a horse or doing the same type of work two days running.
Polework training with Harry Meade
This simple polework exercise doesn’t require a large arena, or can be done on grass if conditions permit.
“For horses coming back into work, I like to do simple exercises that are prescriptive and clear,” Harry says. “I try to focus on doing the small things really well, then the big things look after themselves.
“This exercise is a yardstick as to where the horse is physically and mentally. It exposes any mental fractiousness or physical asymmetry. It’s nice and easy, but we’re aiming to do something straightforward that’s worth a 10 out of 10.”
Working on: creating true suppleness and give through a horse’s back, while calibrating a horse’s stride length.
The set-up is four poles around a 20m circle, with four canter strides between each (see diagram). This set-up works in a 25m wide school. If your school is 20m wide, rotate the circle by 45º so you can ride on the outside of the poles as needed.
(Image credit: creditUnknown)
Harry warms up with some walk and trot work, then builds up the intensity in canter and finally add in variations within the canter pace. He begins the polework by walking purposefully over the circle of poles, straight, and then in shoulder-in, renvers and travers on each rein.
“I’m looking for the horse to maintain the contact as he lifts his shoulder over the pole. The neck should lengthen, the withers come up, with a free shoulder, and this gives you access to the horse’s back.
“A stiff or untrained horse will step over like a puppet and lift his whole head and neck as his shoulder comes up. They should develop the independence of motion to pick up each limb while maintaining their position, but in an elastic not a fixed way.”
Harry trots a circle, travelling over the centre stripe of each pole. He wants the horse working over the back, riding from inside leg to outside hand.
Harry warms up in trot over the poles, patting the horse with the inside hand to check they are in self-carriage.
(Image credit: Jess Photography)
“I pat the horse over every other pole with the inside hand to check he can maintain all aspects of his positioning – his outline, bend and direction of travel around the circle – without relying on the inside hand. It’s important to focus on riding each quadrant [the quarter section of a circle], rather than each pole. I count the trot strides and open the trot up, asking the horse to be generous with his ground cover.”
The exercise: in canter
In canter, Harry rides one quadrant (two poles) on four strides, then misses a pole, another quadrant on four strides, then misses a pole, and so on. He gives the horse a short break before repeating on the other rein. He warns that a common mistake is to count the landing as a stride.
Next, he does the same with two consecutive quadrants (three poles), then misses a pole, another two quadrants, misses another pole, and so on. Harry is aiming to control the line on which he’s travelling around the inside leg, without losing the shoulder.
“If you drift out on landing after a pole, then you compromise the imminent related distance,” he says. “Always look ahead, so your eyes move from the next pole to the quadrant beyond it, well before you have cleared the pole.
Cantering around the circle of poles: “Always look ahead to the next pole, well before you have cleared the pole”.
(Image credit: Jess Photography)
“You’re aiming for a metronome beat – when it’s going well, the tune to Happy Birthday always comes into my head during this exercise! Not by coincidence,” Harry explains, “but because the beat for the canter in this exercise is about 105bpm, which is the same rhythm as most of us would hum Happy Birthday.”
Having repeated on the other rein, Harry does the same with three consecutive quadrants (four poles), then misses a pole, another three quadrants, then misses a pole.
“The horse has to really let go through his back, allowing you to access deeper muscles. The exercise is a tool to assess the quality or ‘form’ of his work, the same as having ‘good form’ in the execution of Pilates work. Like everything in training horses, it’s not so much about what exercise you do, but the manner in which you do it that is important. Any glitches in form will be exposed by the exercise.
“It also calibrates the horse’s stride. A young horse with a weak canter will typically have a long rangy stride and needs to shorten to avoid cantering onto a pole. Horses that canter in a tight way, like a pogo stick, need to soften into a more relaxed canter without tension but with a greater ground cover.
“As a rider, it gives you an awareness of how each horse naturally copes with the distances and therefore what you need to concentrate on when training the canter.”
The next level: changing stride length
“Adjustability is the next layer of intensity,” Harry says. “You can up the ante by changing the size of the canter on a continuous circle – ride two consecutive quadrants each on four strides, then shorten the canter to five strides for the next two quadrants and then back to four for two, and so on. The horse has to lengthen and shorten but without tension or tightness.
“If a horse is not working well, the pole will act as a disruption when attempting to adjust the canter, whereas a horse that is travelling fluently between the changing canter gears will not be affected by the pole.
Once you’ve nailed the exercise, practise lengthening and shortening the stride between the poles to improve your horse’s adjustability.
(Image credit: Jess Photography)
“It is surprisingly hard work for horses as they let go through their bodies and fully give their back to you, so always give your horse breaks when changing the rein. It’s a good exercise for working horses in pairs, as the two horses can work in a tag team with short stints of work and short breaks.”
This exercise is also good for the rider’s “eye” and to practise using the correct aids to lengthen and shorten the horse’s stride.
Variation: seat position
Harry suggests alternating between sitting in the saddle and standing in a light out-of-the-saddle showjumping seat.
You should be able to do the exercise both sitting in the saddle and in a light seat.
(Image credit: Jess Photography)
“A rider should be able to do both well, so if you find one much harder than the other, stick to the more difficult position for a few sessions until you’re fluent, then switch back to test the other position.”
As with all his rides, Harry walks his horse down the lane for 10 minutes after training to warm down.
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Martha is an experienced journalist who is mad-keen on horses and dogs. Her reporting CV includes the Paris Olympics, European championships, Aachen World Equestrian Festival and World Cup finals. After growing up with assorted liver and white springer spaniels, she enjoyed 14 years with two rescue dogs. Now, her constant companion is Fidget, an extremely energetic and habitually muddy black and white springer. Martha has written on topics as diverse as a top horse’s clone to the best GPS trackers for dogs, as well as equestrian and rural matters for Country Life, The Field, The Times, The Spectator and The Telegraph alongside Horse & Hound.
