Poles Exercises For Horses
Have you searched any of these terms? -
Poles exercises for horses to engage hindquarters.
Poles exercises for horses to build muscle.
Poles exercises for horses in a book.
Poles exercises for horses for topline.
Poles exercises for horses for core.
Poles exercises for horses on the lunge.
Poles exercises for horses in a PDF.
Poles exercises for horses in walk.
Poles exercises for horses in hand.
Using trot poles with a very wide distance to teach a junior eventing horse how to use parts of his back he had been avoiding to use.
If you searched any of the above terms then you have landed in the correct place! I have been specialising in using poles and jumping exercises for over a decade, developing signature patterns that allow riders and horse owners from beginner to grand prix to improve their horses overall fitness, strength, mobility and quality of pace, focus, rhythm and balance.
How did I start creating and coaching so many poles exercises for horses?
Coaching Jane Riley at St Andrews Adult Rider Club for a showjumping grids lesson.
Well… over ten years ago I was coaching a little jump club with a focus on grids, related lines and accuracy fences. It was quite popular and one of the local Adult rider clubs booked me to coach at one of their rallies. They wanted me to coach showjumping but also wanted to include what they called their “chickens class”. This was a group of ladies who didn’t want to jump anything higher than a pole on the ground. I didn’t want to do the boring four trot poles in a row with them practicing their jumping position. So I created a little pattern that would require them to look ahead, make turns and maintain a quality of pace… over poles on the ground. Turned out they loved it so much they asked if I could add some poles classes for the chickens at my regular jump club. SO… I did. This grew rapidly to five hours of poles classes and four hours of jump club… they were EPIC days but I loved them!
A rider taking her horse through one of my AML Poles Patterns at Five Start Equestrian Centre where my classes were originally hosted.
I ran poles and jump club every fortnight for four years. It nearly always booked out. I loved seeing how each horse and rider improved. It gave me creative freedom as a coach to create solutions to each riders problems. They would have issues with their own position and balance, or the horse having a shuffling trot or downhill canter. Sometimes the horses would travel too fast or too slowly. I loved watching and analysing the cause of the issues and creating poles patterns or jumping exercises that helped improve specific issues. It was a great feeling of satisfaction to see how one of my own personally designed patterns had benefited a whole bunch of riders.
I had horse riders of every level, discipline, age and breed. Every single one of them benefited from the poles classes.
After four years, I had moved over an hour away from that venue and it became increasingly difficult to run so I started up four hours of poles classes at a new venue on the other side of the mountain. No-one really knew me there but the poles classes rapidly started filling.. I moved to once a month on a weekend and they booked out month after month for another five years.
Now I’m operating from my own property in Macclesfield. I am incredibly grateful to the venues who hosted me for year after year and made some great friends but there is nothing like being able to run from my own property. Horse fitness and horse rider position/balance are things I’m incredibly passionate about. As a rider I’ve always had very natural ‘feel’, probably from being put on a pony at 18 months old! But there was a belief in the industry of coaching for a very long time about how it’s impossible to teach ‘feel’…. Now this is where the poles clinics I have run make me disagree. With the patterns I set up, and the way I run my classes in repetitions like a gym class… I find riders developing and finding their feel time and time again. The lines of travel the riders must take through my patterns cause their ‘intuitive feel’ to kick in. I often find they will correct their position or balance before the words exit my mouth on what they need to do.
My home arena, practicing one of my own patterns on a little Off The Track Thoroughbred mare I own.
As an overflow from the poles and jumping clinics I have been asked hundreds of times to tailor training programs for horseriders all around the world to help improve their horses jumping technique… or to help improve their own riding position… or to help improve their horses topline or build more muscle and core strength. On the back of that I created courses horse riders can access at any time and execute in their own schedule. One being the AML Six Week Rider Balance Challenge. Now this is HARD and repetitive and based on foundation training… everyone who rides it properly reaps huge rewards!
Then there’s the How To Build Your Horses Topline - This one has all the information you need from nutrition through to measuring fitness and the exercises required to build your horses topline, hindquarter strength and core strength. This program also helps you learn how to create your own training schedule suited to your individual horse.
I think THE number one question I get asked is - “What distance do I set my poles at?” I’ve created a ten pole PDF that not only contains ten poles patterns but also distances explained. There is also the 20 Day Horse Movement Challenge which is a little more detailed with 20 poles patterns in graphics, written instructions and video demonstrations. This has a video demonstration explaining distances and how to set your poles patterns up. Below is a link to my store page for the poles PDF and the other programs are in the menu bar of my site.
Where to now? Well I’m continuing to build my little AML business from Macclesfield in VIC. I hope to get the poles, jumping and groundwork clinics as popular as what they were in previous locations. We are slowly getting there. At the end of the day I just want to help more horse riders and more horses have better, longer lasting relationships!
Photo credit - White Shutter Photography - Picture of one of my clients practicing accuracy fences at my August AML Boot Camp.