This polework exercise using five poles is designed to improve your horse’s suppleness and manoeuvrability in trot. The poles are used as focus points to structure your training exercise, rather than for stepping over.
Aims
to improve rider accuracy
to confirm correct use of inside and outside leg
to improve the horse’s coordination and suppleness
The setup
You need: five poles
Setup: place five poles on a straight line with five metres between each. Then pull the second and fourth poles to one side but keeping them in the same plane.
Ensure there is sufficient space to the side of each pole so that you can walk around the ends – don’t place them against the fence line.
The poles help to keep your focus as you work on your horse’s correct bend
(Image credit: creditUnknown)
How to ride the exercise
Once warmed up, establish an active trot.
The aim is not to trot over the poles, but around them, ensuring a uniform bend through your horse’s body on both reins.
Start with the first pole in the line of three poles and ride a pear-drop shaped loop around that, ensuring the horse is bending through his whole body. Then change the bend in an offset figure of eight to perform another pear-drop shaped loop around the first of the line of two poles.
Repeat with the next two poles in the sequence.
When it comes to the final pole, make a wider loop and come up the middle of the two lines in a mini slalom. Instead of big wide loops with lots of bend, it’s now about creating a little bit of bend in the ribcage. The horse needs to be listening to the rider and have quick reactions.
The challenge is to do it efficiently with the horse maintaining the ideal tempo and creating the correct shapes, neither falling in or out through the shoulder and quarters.
Tips
1. Start slow
If this exercise is too demanding in trot, try it first in walk (or try this exercise) until the horse understands your aids and what you are asking of him.
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2. Perfection by polework
Polework is a great way for riders to monitor whether they are achieving something when riding on their own, because they require accuracy. If you aren’t accurate, you will miss or hit the poles. When you’re just riding around the arena without physical markers, it’s harder to judge your accuracy.
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.
