Riders must subscribe to very specific patterns when doing pole bends. Learn how to perform pole bends properly from a horseback riding instructor in this equestrian video.
Begin jogging
Follow pattern
Keep horse straight
Practice
Kathy Kentala has been a horse enthusiast since she was six years old. Kathy owns the Bee Cave Riding Center in Texas and specializes in training youth groups.
We're going to look at the fun of pole bending today. Our rider is going to start beginning with a slower pace of the jog. As she goes down we want to recognize there's a distinct pattern in pole bending that we must subscribe to. So she's jogging down, straight down as we call it. And then she's going to begin to weave these poles coming back through, in more of what we would consider kind of lateral work or where we keep the horse's nose pointing straight down this way and she moves him away from her leg as she weaves the poles coming home. We like to jog our horses first giving them a chance to become what we call patterned. In these speed events in the Western world, it's very common for the horse to do them often enough that they in fact know they're own job. They still need to listen to the rider. And we continue to ask them to do a lot of different kinds of things that bring them to become good poles or playday horses. So as we jog him through, it gives him a chance to get that pattern down and now she's going to jog him all the way home. And that would complete the whole pattern in a practice or warm-up sense. After she completes this series at the jog, we're going to have her repeat it at what we would call a lope. A lope is similar to the final gallop that we'll take but it is just a little bit slower. So now she'll go and she'll begin this pattern at the lope. As we see her loping down, we want to stay as close to the poles as possible, but not get so close that we have her knock one over. As she begins to weave through at the lope, if she we're to knock a pole down--and there we've got two of them. Then that would add 5 seconds to her score. So that means, right now we're looking at a time that's going to have an additional 10 seconds. So very important that we teach the horse to learn not only to stay quick and handy through it, but tidy enough that we don't knock the poles down. So now she can bring him on home with a good strong gallop 'cause that's where you can make up all that extra time.
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