Lesson ideas and exercises for crossrail kids

[SugarCubes]

Looking for some fun exercises for a group lesson for 3 younger girls. They are all pretty solid WTC and for their lessons I usually just set up a simple cross rail course and they trot in and canter out of each line. But, this is getting a little repetitious and I’m needing some new ideas. They aren’t ready to canter courses yet, but they have cantered singles then halted straight.

I’ve upped the difficulty by setting pole courses with bending lines and roll backs (all trotting), they’ve done the circle of death with poles (trotting) but they don’t have the balance to jump anything on a circle. I’m drawing a blank for more fun exercises. Any ideas?

We always end their lessons with a bareback obstacle course, or play egg and spoon or around the world to cool down, which they really look forward to, so the first half of the lesson is usually the “serious” stuff where we really learn, and the second half is more fun and games.

[BLBSTBLS]

What about setting up a cross rail then a good distance to establish a good trot, some trot poles to another cross rail.
To encourage establishing a good rhythm between jumps

[JamiePajamas]

Sometimes to work on developing their eyes and riding between the jumps I’ll have an outside line of just ground poles, or a crossrail for the in and a ground pole for the out and have them work on counting strides, then adding and leaving out strides. The game “who can fit the most steps” is a good one (and super quiet school horses tend to love it) as long as no one is hauling on anyone’s mouths between the jumps.

To a single jump sometimes I’ll have my kids count 1-2-3 and keep adding on until someone counts the correct strides from the farthest away.

Jumping without reins is a fun one. Reins in a knot, drop them on the neck a few strides out.

Also letting the kids make up their own course.

[Eilsel]

Things I like to do with my 2’ and under crowd:

-Riding with one hand on your head- start just on the flat then they could do this over small trot-in jumps or lines.
-Follow the leader- they love this! Encourage the leader to do two point/sitting/posting and changing directions/serpentines
-Never too soon to start some no stirrups! Might want to do on a lunge line first and only if you know your school ponies are ok with it
-Dropping stirrups and picking them up- good to do during walk breaks
-Lunge line 1 at a time working on no hands exercises while the kids on the rail do their own flatwork (post on the ends, 2 point on the long sides or something like that)

If they’re comfortable doing trot in canter out lines, you could have them trot in a line and then “if it’s good” have them canter a single, then back to the trot.

On the flat, to get more comfortable cantering, I like to have them trot the long sides of the arena then canter a circle on the end. Helps them practice steering and transitions. Then working on simple lead changes.

Hopefully this gives you some ideas!

[SugarCubes]

BLBSTBLS Oh, I like that idea…they need work on that, they are still learning what a good trot feels like coming to a jump.

Jamie We work on that a lot actually. I’ll set a line without telling them how many strides it is and have them ride through it and tell me what they got. Then we decide how it rode and whether or not they needed to add a stride, leave out a stride, or stay the same. They are pretty solid with getting the correct numbers once I tell them what they need to do. The “who can count strides from the furthest away” sounds like a great idea! They would love that, they’re really competitive.

Eilsel Fun ideas! I’ll have to have them play follow the leader tonight!

Thanks for the great ideas, sometimes it gets a little stale…

[Limerick]

When I was a kid, I loved “Command Class” whereby the trainer gave instructions that got increasingly hard and the last person to perform command each time gets eliminated. My wonderfully trained pony Limerick won quite a few of those classes.

You can also print off basic dressage tests and read them as the kids perform them individually.

Other than that, lots of work in two point working on getting solid basics to prepare for cantering courses.

Enjoy!!

[Wonders12]

What do they need to work on in order to be able to canter courses?

If it’s steering at the canter, I like to do “dressage tests with jumps” which is basically just a pattern with some jumps thrown in. To start out, they might trot a jump and then canter a circle, trot, come across the diagonal, trot jump, etc. Then they can move up to trot a jump, canter a circle, canter a jump.

If it’s getting stronger in the tack, it’s time to introduce no stirrups! Do it slowly, but build it up. Kids do much better at no stirrup work quickly than adults do.

To work on adjusting stride/speed, line everyone up close to each other (on really good school ponies) and have them trot around the rail. Have the last rider move out of line and “fast trot” to the front of the line before slowing down to become the leader. It’s hard and the kids will learn adjustability quickly without hounding on it.

Trot, and eventually canter poles are great ways to keep school horse minds and bodies sharp with low impact on their bodies. For the kids, it teaches them rhythm and tightness in the tack with low consequences.

[krv]

Try some quadrille. The USEF has tests. They even have a walk/trot test. We do individual movements to start with and build up to the whole test. The kids think it will be easy but they soon find out how hard it is. And it teaches them a lot, listening skills, following directions, discipline, to rate their horses, their left from their right, a little geometry in the circles and movements and last but not least, to work as a team. By the end of the lesson my riders are always laughing and having a good time and always want to do it again. For the end of quadrille session I let them ride the movements to music. They laugh at their mistakes, with each other, not “at” anyone. And the part I like best is they start helping each other figure it out.
Usually these sessions start out like a free for all, but always, when they are finished you can see improvement and the kids do too. Plus anyone on a horse can participate, no matter whether it is English or Western or Gaited.

[joiedevie99]

I’d also incorporate basic balance exercises:

Posting up, up, down AND down, down, up
Count-down in trot: 10 strides sitting, 10 posting, 10 2-point, then 9 sitting, 9 posting, 9 2-point, all the way down to 1
Count-down in canter: 10 strides sitting, 10 strides 2-point, 9, etc.

[mfglickman]

My daughter’s trainer had her cantering courses very quickly. They’d warm up trotting a fence back and forth, maybe trot in/canter out of a line a few times. She was rocking the rollback turns and bending lines - it was great experience and helped her develop a better eye.

[MtnDrmz]

It sounds like you do quite a few exercises for a group that you said isn’t ready to canter courses. I would also second that you should be working on whatever is going to help them be able to canter courses since they seem to be doing lots of other exercises. If they are trotting in and cantering out, and doing pole courses competently, then what is keeping them from taking the next step? Do they need to get more canter work to be able to maintain pace, or do they need to tune up their breaks? I always liked to trick my kids into conditioning by telling them that we were going to pretend like they were in a flat class. They had to keep working, listen, follow directions, and ride through it, just as if they were in a show. I would also use terms like the announcers will so they get used to hearing certain terms and horse show lingo. We would talk about what we can each do better after, and then sometimes do a second round to try to improve on the notes form the first round. They liked it because it made that conditioning not feel quite as torturous, and they got stronger. All of the above exercises sound great, and fun, but if you really want to help them to be able to progress to cantering courses, really figure out what each needs in order to do that.

[Lexie55]

My trainer used to have us do a gambler’s choice jumper course over poles and crossrails scattered around the arena. We loved pretending we were at a big show and making up our own course.

[x]

To introduce cantering courses, I will have a student trot into a line, canter out, then continue to canter around the end of the ring and on to a fence set on a diagonal–usually far enough away from the turn that they have some straight away to go to get to it, but they have had to canter around the end of the ring. Then I go from there adding jumps until they are cantering a course. If they are not ready to canter around the end of the ring and to a jump, I would suggest more flat canter work, including cantering circles and cantering figure eights with simple changes. If you are concerned about the jump coming up, replace the jump with a pole. This is assuming you have school horses that canter at a steady rhythm to the fences…much more difficult if you have a horse you are teaching on that tends to speed up going to the fences.