Super straightness

Straightness is sooo important in all aspects of riding, from strutting down the centre line in your dressage test to nailing a skinny on the cross-country course, and everything in between. But if you want to achieve perfect straight lines, you need to ride accurately. Here’s a fun polework layout that’ll put your pony’s straightness to the test.

Set it up

My hexagon layout uses 14 3m poles. Start by placing four poles in the centre of your riding area to create an X, then add six more poles around the X to make a hexagon. Finally, place four poles around the hexagon to make an open square – place each of these poles two trot strides (2–2.4m) out from the hexagon.

Get ready

In the first part of this series, I highlighted what you need to do in your warm-up to get your pony in the zone – check out last issue for full details! But the most important thing to remember is getting your pony responsive to your aids. Ride plenty of transitions and think about encouraging him to work forwards in your warm-up – when he’s in trot, you want him to be ready to canter at any moment when given the aids. This means he needs plenty of impulsion and power!

Walk the walk

Whenever you introduce your pony to a polework layout, and even when you ride a new line through a layout you’ve worked on loads of times before, always start in walk. This will help your pony to understand where you’re asking him to go without forcing him to think really quickly – which is when mistakes and slip-ups can happen.

Walking over poles is hard work for your pony, so it helps build up his muscles. Plus, ponies find trotting through polework layouts much easier because they have more momentum, so by slowing down he has to work harder to lift each leg and clear the poles.

Find out how to progress this exercise to the next level in November PONY – on sale now!