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One of my favourites exercises is cavaletti. There are so many uses and they are a valuable learning tool for all horses. Any inattentivness is fixed smartly. Some horses are worried about them and try to jump over two or three, all at once which can be a tad spectacular. Slow and steady wins the race on this one - start walking over 1 - then 2 and trot 1 then 2 then 3 - the distance must suit the horse. I put the cavaletti at 1.4 metres apart, and then shuffle around - out or in to suit the natural stride.

I ride in two point seat - light three point or rising trot - never sitting especially on a young horse. Sitting makes them go hollow.

I am fussy about the horse maintaining the shape - the frame of the horse is very important. I ride the horse as ‘on the bit’ as his training allows. I think this is very important. You know most horses go over or approach the cavaletti the same way they canter over jumps. If a horse has a tendancy to poke his nose out cantering to jumps - you can bet over the cavaletti will be the same. Rushing, drifting out, any of the problems that show up over fences can be corrected in your cavaletti work.

With luck comes progress - but don’t be too ambitious, no more than four to six - yes you can do more one day but not right now. But don’t let them turn into trip/stumble/scatter poles - because then you have one very tense horse about poles and cavaletti. Most horses cope well when the cavaletti is just above the ground but the next height is much more difficult. Some horses cope, some do not. So I just keep the cavaletti low. Many Thoroughbred types are watchful and over jump these little poles anyway.

Another advantage of this type of work is that the rider is able to practise upper body position, rein release and leg positions at the same time.

Concentrate on only one part of the body at a time. Think rein release and repeat as many times as you like. Then try - heels down - the mind cannot cope with four different commands at once. “heels down” “hands still” “eyes ahead” and “hey - don’t let your horse run away”. Sound familiar ? Try one thing at a time.

You can use your cavaletti every day if you wish, or every time you ride schooling type work.

Have fun!!!

The  exercise: Trot poles to a cross rail with a rail behind it. There will be four trot poles, and they will be the same distance as you would normally have cavaletti or any other trotting pole distance, which is 1.20m to 1.40m for the longer striding horse. The distance between the last pole and the jump is about 2.7m and that doesn’t seem to vary much, unless your horse has an extremely big stride.

If you feel that the horse has to hop and finds it quite difficult, the horse is telling you he is not very comfortable, so make it a little longer. The cross keeps the horse in the middle, and the rail at the back just makes for a little bit more of a jump on the end. You can start most green horses with a cross, and put the rail behind it once they get the hang of it.

Method: You will need to trot your horse through the rails a couple of times to feel whether the horse is comfortable. This is an exercise which requires the horse to be going quite actively forward into your hand, because with the jump at the end of the poles, if the horse’s trot doesn’t have enough impulsion they will find that they are not making the distance between the poles and the idea of the exercise is to really work them through the poles; the jump on the end is something to focus on as well, for both rider and horse.

What the four poles do is teach the horse to set itself, just like cavaletti and with the jump on the end, any horse that wants to rush or evade in some way,will find it a lot harder. Instead of the horse just running through the poles, they learn to set themselves and measure the distances more carefully.

Rider’s Position: The rider’s position through all this can be a rising trot, or as I prefer, what we call a crutch three point position, which is a very light seat but sitting; forward, but sitting. I like this better because it really puts the emphasis on the rider’s lower leg, balancing so that they don’t hang onto the horse’s mouth too much.

Problems and how to solve them: Sometimes when you start, you’ll find that your horse goes through well some of the time and sometimes he doesn’t, that’s only to be expected until he gets the hang of it. However if the horse is going fast and is trying to skip through the poles for no good reason, then the idea is to put the jump up a bit more slowly, always within the horse’s comfort zone, because when the horse starts to get a bit worried he will try and get too fast through the poles.

It is also difficult for the rider when the jump gets higher to stay steady. That’s the hard part. That’s what we have to practice, keeping very steady through the poles. Some horses naturally don’t like it. Some horses find the trotting thing hard when the jump starts to get up a bit and I’m talking about one metre, then they start to get a bit anxious. So then, you just bring the fence down until they become comfortable again and then you just stay with that height until they really learn the lesson well. It might take three sessions, it might take six sessions, some horses will do it well in one session.

Results: This exercise teaches the horse to remain steady in front of a fence. It reminds the rider how to ride forward into the hand, into the contact. It’s also an exercise to make the horse pick up its feet and focus on the fence. There are two things to focus on, the poles and the jump.

It’s good position practice for the rider, they can practise their rein release over the jump. It’s a very old European style exercise and I think that most of these sort of exercises are very useful.

They are in most of the top training books and videos, but we tend to slide over them because they are what we might consider to be old fashioned but horses are still horses. This exercise is the next step after cavaletti. I really like cavaletti and this is another step on the day that you don’t want to do a lot of jumping but you want to do something, this a nice little exercise to play around with, and you can build the fence at the end, as high as you like.

It has a very good effect. It really works the horse, really makes them use their power out of the trot, because the four poles keep the horse steady as opposed to one. They can sort of run beside or over one pole and make a bid at the fence still, and canter and do all the wrong things over one pole; the four poles keep them steady. I use a cross rail with a rail behind it to make it that little bit harder. I think it is a very essential part of your training, as jumpers have to be ‘pole literate!’