This S-bend or maze exercise is designed to be done in walk. However, you can choose either to ride it or do it in hand – both have benefits. As your horse navigates their way through the maze of poles, it’s a mentally stimulating challenge to encourage suppleness, build core strength and balance, while teaching your horse to take care where he puts his feet.
I personally love this polework exercise and find it to be really beneficial. Plus, walk is a very effective pace for polework because there is no moment of suspension, which means your horse has to use muscular effort, thereby building core strength.
Aims
Improve proprioception
Boost balance and core strength
Provide mental stimulation
The setup
Setup: six poles arranged in a maze or S shape
You will need: if working in-hand, a training halter, lunging cavesson, or your horse’s usual bridle. Otherwise, your usual tack.
How to ride the maze exercise
Whether you are riding or working in-hand, warm up the horse for 10 minutes or so, including transitions and circles. Check he is responsive to your aids, listening and ready to work.
Let’s say you want to ride the exercise. Approach the entry to the maze (blue line) in a nice active walk.
The corners will be tight. Open your inside hand to encourage your horse to bend through his body in the direction of travel. Control the shoulder from falling out with the outside rein. Apply pressure with the inside leg, to encourage him to step under and cross over with his hindlegs, like you would in turn on the forehand. The outside leg behind the girth should be in contact with their side to stop the quarters swinging out.
To do this exercise in-hand, you will need to use your body positioning, line and stick to encourage your horse to bend and step under.
You can also use this layout to walk and trot over the poles as shown in the diagram by the orange and yellow lines.
Tips and troubleshooting
1. Start simple
Start with wide channels (around 1.5m) when introducing this layout. You can reduce them to about 1m when the horse is proficient at this exercise.
You can also start with a basic L or U shape rather than the full maze while the horse works out the challenge.
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2. Rushing
Horses can feel trapped by the narrow boundaries and rush, or try to go over the poles rather than chicane around them. If this happens, widen the channels. You can also walk the horse around the layout first so they can inspect it.
3. Steering problems
Your horse may be confused by the layout and what you want him to do in the tight space, or lack lateral suppleness. Take it slowly, using clear aids whether you are doing the exercise ridden or in-hand.
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.
