What are some good ground pole exercises I could incorporate into our training ?
What are you trying to teach? GPs can be used for balance/rhythm, straightness, shortening or lengthening a stride… lots of things. So it just depends on what you’re looking for.
Since you didn’t say “cavaletti,” I’m assuming you want canter pole exercises?
I have done lots of them this summer. I started with 4-5 poles randomly scattered in my riding area. Do regular flatwork, and occasionally w/t/c over a single pole when your horse feels balanced. Don’t try to string them together, just work on making the pole no big deal, just another stride of great flatwork: straight, rhythmic, balanced. Your horse should not be excited, leaping or anticipating the pole. This could take 5 minutes or 5 rides.
Exercise 1: Bounce rails
Your horse should be comfortable trotting poles set up as cavaletti. Set up bounce rails, 4-5 rails set 9’ apart that will ride like a bounce grid. Approach with a coffin canter-- light and active. Stay centered over your horse and soft in your arms and let him bounce you over the rails. If he wants to get quick, approach off a short turn. Don’t hang on his face; let him make a mistake. If 9’ is unmanageable, roll them out to 10’, but try to get them back to 9’ when he understands. On experienced, well-trained horses, you can roll the poles in to 8’, 7’, even 6’ if they have a well-developed collected canter. It’s very difficult, the horse must be back on its hocks!
Exercise 2: Circle of death- a very useful, versatile exercise!
The classic circle exercise, four poles at 12, 3, 6, and 9 o’clock, about 60’ apart (four strides). Start with just one pole (12 o’clock), then add another (6 o’clock), then the last two. Rhythm and balance are very important! Work to get an equal number of strides in each quadrant, stay in the center of each pole-- it will force you to ride “straight” on a curve (no shoulder popping or leaning). Up the challenge by adding a stride-- 5 strides between each pole, or 6 if you’re really good. Experienced, well-schooled horses can alternate between 4 and 5 strides on the same circle; or increase the difficulty with counter canter, flying changes. Variation: add 3 more rails in an adjacent circle to make a figure-8, changing direction at 3 o’clock.
Exercise 3: zigzag
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Four rails, sent end-to-end, at perpedicular angles. This exercise is all about turning, using the turn for balance, and changing the lead (flying or simple is ok). The pattern: over the blue pole, circle left, over the black pole, circle right, over the red pole, circle left, over the green pole. Then reverse the direction: up over the green pole, circle right over the red pole, circle left over the black pole, circle right over the blue pole. I learned this exercise from GM at the Ocala Training Sessions years ago. Work on getting to the base of the rail, making your turns even, ideally changing leads over the rail, but staying straight-- don’t cut your turn. If you don’t get the lead change, stay straight, ask again or do a simple change (don’t rush). Green horses will often break to the trot, it’s ok just circle, regroup, and keep going. Start at the trot, and stay on big circles as necessary to maintain balance. (video of exercise pattern, as jumps) This exercise is good for horses who anticipate, as the tight turns keep them guessing and they can’t build up steam. Increase difficulty by making your circles smaller (down to 10m).
Have a brave, catty horse? Canter through the zig-zag in a straight line, bouncing over the 4 rails at an angle. I’ve done the two points as corners, too, on my advanced mare.
Exercise 4: simulating a course
Set rails out in a course, instead of jumps. Set up a straight line (related distance), a bending line, a combination, bounce rails, angles, etc. Work on adjusting/adding strides in the related distances, practice your turns and balance just as if it were a real course.
I just neet to work on straightness, turning/bending, rhythm, etc. 
Thanks, I will try those.
Oooohhhh! I’ll be trying the zig zag soon! I have a mare that is ready to start jumping, but I do not currently have a well fitting jump saddle (that’s a whole nother thread!). I’m not confident or comfortable trying to jump in my dressage saddle.
Another exercise that can be done over poles or jumps:
Set poles (4-6) up for 1 canter stride (21’, or maybe down to 18’ if just poles) like this:
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This exercise is great for working on straightness 
We used to do this as kids but we used more like 6 jumps. At some point, the jumps became more skewed so that you had to be super accurate.
There have been some great exercises mentioned. Almost any exercise you do with jumps, you can lower to poles and get practically the same effect. Do you have Jimmy Wofford’s “Gymnastics” book? I HIGHLY recommend it.
Ummmm…my diagram didn’t turn out right after I posted. Oops!
Let me try to describe this in words intead of pictures:
You’ll have your groundpoles 1 canter stride apart. However, the 2nd pole will be placed slightly off center to the first. The 3rd will be off center in the opposite direction of the last, etc.
This way, if you trot/canter the line of poles in a straight line, if you have to be very accurate in order to hit each pole because they are slightly skewed from one another. Hope that makes sense…
Awesome exercises. I now got something to do with my guy tonight. A variation of the zig zag is a cross pattern.
Four poles set in a cross with maybe 2 or 3 ft between the inner ends. I approach a pole in canter then make a turn to the outside and cross the next pole and continue in a clover leaf path. Initially I make the turns wide, but then try to tighten while still keeping balance. I do this in both directions.
Once that feels good, I’ll upgrade to cross rails, then verticals.
I like the zig zag, but we’re (meaning I’m) not doing flying changes on demand. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t, but I’m not asking right (sigh). Now I’m excited to go home and play.
(on a side note, I’d love to attach bungee cords from the back of the saddle to my shoulders to keep me from launching to forward)
EventerAJ, When you set up a course, what distances do you use for stride length? Thanks, fg
http://e-venting.co.uk/2014/10/schooling-exercise-with-poles/
http://e-venting.co.uk/2014/01/4-poles-7-exercises/
http://e-venting.co.uk/2014/01/3-fences-7-exercises/
http://e-venting.co.uk/2014/04/jumping-exercise-to-make-horses-riders-think/
http://e-venting.co.uk/2013/09/polework-for-dressage-3/
If you search the site there are loads of different exercises but this will give you a taste.
I have an awesome book called Schooling with Ground Poles by Claire Lilly. It’s one of my favorites, going from the very basics for young horses to setting up exercises to work on more advanced jumping questions.
AJ is freakin’ brilliant. That is all.
Wow, old thread! I need to take a new video of Ranger doing that exercise, he has come a long way since he was 4.
For farmgirl: The distance I use for stride length over ground poles is 9-12’, depending on the horse and what I’m trying to accomplish. For example, a 4-stride line will be set to 60’. I’ll ride it in four, five, and six strides. I usually set combinations of rails (one stride, two stride) based on a 9-10’ stride since most of my horses need encouragement to compress, not extend, and I want them comfortably getting to the base of the rail. I don’t want them taking off from 6’+ away, I want their front toes CLOSE to the rail (to teach them to get to the base of a fence and be patient). So a “one stride” of poles will be 18-22’, two strides at 27-30’. Adjust the distances as needed for your horse and your purpose.
On advanced horses, you can ride a 24’ set of poles as a forward one stride or a very collected two stride. I’d never attempt that over sizeable jumps, but it’s a nice test of collection over the rails.
New video of the zigzag pattern exercise: http://youtu.be/SKh7brgvWkg
That’s the same horse, now 2 years later, with a MUCH improved canter. You want to get right to the base of the rail, so the horse coils himself and “hops” delicately over the pole, landing with good balance. You’ll notice that many of the small circles are ridden at the same number of strides (13); I wasn’t counting, just trying to get as small and balanced circle as possible, and it actually worked out as if I did it intentionally. If you like to count, go for it, but RIDE YOUR CANTER and the stride will be there.
At the end of the video, see the straight line bouncing through the rails at an angle. It’s VERY important to be straight for that, as drifting in either direction ruins the distance.
That is brilliant. My horse is too green for this, but we’ll try the exercise at the trot for now Thanks for sharing!
[QUOTE=EventerAJ;7867180]
New video of the zigzag pattern exercise: http://youtu.be/SKh7brgvWkg
That’s the same horse, now 2 years later, with a MUCH improved canter. You want to get right to the base of the rail, so the horse coils himself and “hops” delicately over the pole, landing with good balance. You’ll notice that many of the small circles are ridden at the same number of strides (13); I wasn’t counting, just trying to get as small and balanced circle as possible, and it actually worked out as if I did it intentionally. If you like to count, go for it, but RIDE YOUR CANTER and the stride will be there.
At the end of the video, see the straight line bouncing through the rails at an angle. It’s VERY important to be straight for that, as drifting in either direction ruins the distance.[/QUOTE]
Nicely done! Very steady and quiet. Thanks for the demo!
Thank you very much!
[QUOTE=mugsgame;7862425]
http://e-venting.co.uk/2014/10/schooling-exercise-with-poles/
http://e-venting.co.uk/2014/01/4-poles-7-exercises/
http://e-venting.co.uk/2014/01/3-fences-7-exercises/
http://e-venting.co.uk/2014/04/jumping-exercise-to-make-horses-riders-think/
http://e-venting.co.uk/2013/09/polework-for-dressage-3/
If you search the site there are loads of different exercises but this will give you a taste.[/QUOTE]
These are genious! Thank you for posting. Much different than the typical gyms.
I’m really liking this thread. It’s giving me some great ideas for winter “tune up” work to really make our rides count. Might even motivate me to want to ride more despite the cold weather. :winkgrin:
I tried the zig-zag pattern tonight in the indoor. Love it! My guy even bounced through at an angle easily on the first try. I made sure to actually walk the angled line I planned to ride to make sure they were all set 9’ apart. Thanks for the ideas :). Will have to try some others!
