How rewarding it is to jump obstacles that your horse finds success on after previous difficulty...
It's easy to see how something like ground pole work can fall to the wayside. Ground poles are an excellent way to work on all aspects of jumping without physically taxing your horse. I've used poles as stride markers a bit over the last year, but honestly not much more than that.
In my defense, we are predicted another harsh and wet (no jumping on wet ground or frozen ground) winter. I've been jumping while the sun shines humidity be damned. Not to mention that on my turf the poles easily roll and riding alone means getting off to reset them. A lot.
It was time to bite the ground pole bullet as two training issues were rearing their heads and I wanted to stop them for good.
One was Bandon getting careless with his feet.
The other was me. As Bandon learns the fine art of impulsion vs speed, I was getting forward leading into, through, and after combinations in an effort to balance with his speed instead of sitting back and getting the impulsion letting him jump up to me. I was equally trying to balance his forward motion (creating more) and feeling the need to heave him over the fence instead of trusting he would meet me halfway.
It's easy to sit here and say it now, already understanding the mechanics of how loading a horse's front end makes them come forward even faster (and could be contributing to him getting clumsy with his feet). It's much more difficult when you are in a combination line and everything in you wants to move with the horse to get them over the jump. Sitting back would feel like you were setting up a perfect crash into the jump.
So to fix me not coming back and to fix him not being careful, I brought out my measuring tape and set two lines of poles. One at trot distance and the other at a canter spacing for a 2 stride 2 stride 2 stride 1 stride.
Czech is coming along in his physical therapy, his stifles aren't clicking nearly as much as they did a few weeks ago. On him in the arena first, I put him over the poles. The action to pick his feet up would alleviate the boredom of our exercise routine and could help him build flexibility.
Czech turned into the trot pole line and my fire breathing dragon on fence approaches was under me! He tucked that head, cranked up behind the bit, leaped the poles two at the time, then cantered off all proud of himself.
I laughed at him, called him a big goober, and we went back at it intent on fixing some of his jumping issues. By the end of it he would hold a trot throughout before tucking up behind the bit as we came off them around a curve. I just love unintended teaching opportunities! This might be a great thing for Czech and I.
Bandon was up next and I learned from Czech that I should probably show him the poles by leading him the first time. Both boys have done them before, of course, it's just been awhile.
Bandon kicked the poles like each one was worth points.
Up on his back, he was Bambi on ice. He stepped over one, stepped on the next, jumped the fourth and fifth, by the time we were at the end he jumped the last two in one stride for good measure. A few more laps and quite a lot of half halts, he was trotting through and only jumping the last two.
On to the canter poles, oh my goodness. Halfway in, he was in a sprint race. I, not worried about crashing into a fence, could sit back and rate him with decent results. The horse can certainly jump if I can get paced correctly.
Next time out I walked Spotlight and Pegasus down to do the trot poles in hand. Spotlight is not known for his jumping prowess at all. In fact one of the main reasons he became ours is because he refused to do it. I assumed he would need some prodding and was completely wrong. He picked his little feet through the trot poles in perfect form without even creating a breeze to move one. Pegasus on the other hand pinned his tiny ears and went through them like he was gritting his teeth.
Czech made his way through, not cranking his head nearly as much and I felt good about progress while Bandon came off the canter poles bucking a few times and sent trot poles flying all directions.
Dull it is but certainly not a waste of time to spend a week or so on this ground level exercise again, maybe I'll ask Santa for real wooden poles this year...
"I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work the more I have of it." Thomas Jefferson
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