Poles for Everyone

I put out poles a couple of weeks ago. Now, by poles, I mean "poles" because they are just little sticks that hold up baby trees. They were free when I was riding Rico and on a crazy budget and they've held up for the last what, eight years? Pretty good deal! 

There are six of them left, so I figured I should set them out and if I like using them, I should see about investing in some real poles. Even when TC and I leave the ranch, my niece will be learning to ride there so poles will be helpful for her. But she is only eighteen months so isn't anywhere near trot poles yet. 

I set up three poles on a circle of death of sorts, then put the other three poles in the middle as trot poles. And then I tormented both horses with them! 

That split behind is really exciting! He could try a
little harder to avoid stepping on the pole though

While I focus on the steering, the canters like this
jeez TC

Sunny at least knows how to jump, so he's been downright fun to do the circle of death on. It's been really helpful because he is an inherently lazy creature who doesn't care if I think he's doing a good job (he's starting to let his guard down a bit, I think he's just been ridden by a lot of people in his day so he just sits in the back of the classroom and gets his work done while TC sits at the front of the class with his hand up like the nerd he is). He does seem to think the poles are fun though so it helps him stay up in front of my leg. 

He's a compact little thing so the trot poles, set for TC's collected trot, are a bit long for him which is perfect as I start trying to get him to let me vary his stride length in trot. I can definitely get a little difference in stride length in canter, but man his trot has one set stride length and a wide variety of tempos. I'd really love it to be the exact opposite of that. 

So we're doing a lot of making a tiny trot before the poles, then trying to push forward over them, and back to the tiny trot on the other side. I haven't done it enough to say it's working, but it's definitely more fun than endless forward and back around the arena. 

It's really challenging our straightness, he likes
to lean against my left leg tracking left, who knew?

Pretty uphill for just kind of steering and pushing
him forward

TC, on the other hand, has no natural ability to jump unless you count jumping out of his paddock from a stand still when he was four or the year and a half of leaping (over nothing) he did in his youth. He has done a lot of trot poles though so we've got that going for us! I mostly just want him to do them every day for his fitness and to work on the DAP going on in his working trot. 

The canter poles are what I find most interesting on him. While he is absolutely terrible at them in so many ways, I'm loving the canter I'm finding between the poles. It takes him a few rounds to start to relax his topline over the poles themselves, but even when the poles are ugly, the canter in between is fabulous. 

I also just like giving him time to canter without expectations on him. He will trot for days on a long/loose rein but he is WEIRD about the canter. There's so much management that goes into it and while I appreciate that he'll let me influence him, I don't love that he can't just freaking canter without input. I'd like to get him out to the horse park (that was going to be my project this year but we have been saddleless enough that a membership didn't make sense) and let him go on the gallop track at some point but he gets weird even if I get into a half seat on him in the arena at the canter. 

So the poles are helping him be more aware of his feet and his own balance rather than depending on me. Whether that will significantly positively impact the dressage, who knows, but for me, I like that it's giving him something to think about on his own vs me always telling him what each foot should be doing. 

I can't emphasize how little I was doing, it's kind 
of annoying honestly

Go TC go!

At this point, I'm leaning heavily toward getting some more poles! It's nice to be able to just leave them out in the arena (I have them strategically placed so they're easy to ride around) and I figure I'll keep a canter and a trot exercise set up at all times. I drag the arena about every other week (two horses five days a week doesn't use up the arena all that much lol) so I can reset the exercises then. And honestly both TC and Sunny stand quietly while I mess around with the poles so even if I have an idea on a whim, I can just change it up. 

For now, my six poles are making riding really fun right now so we'll keep on keeping on and I'll start looking at getting a set of real poles soon enough!