[lil_loz_rocks]

so last sunday was our pony club rally, plus my birthday!! thanx 4 the cake and cookies channelle & julia.
so back to the point.
we were doing this um... maybe it could be called a grid, im not shore.
this is what it looked like from the air:

Red lines are jumps and blue are poles on the ground

~~~~~~~l l ~~~~~~-4th jump
~~~~~l ~~~~~~~~~- 2nd and 3rd jump which was a spred with only one ground line
~~~~~~~l l l l ~~~~~-1st jump
all of thoes lines is a jump. the gap between the 1st jump and either of the other 2 was only one small stride. and there was quite an angle to get to the jumps. half of us in the top group almost ran into the wings.
so that was one part but then later on we had 2 do some really dangerous

so heres what we had 2 do:

1) Canter really forward up 2 the poles and go over them,
2) Angle on 2 the 2nd jump ( remember that you are going forward and its a small canter stride)
3) After that do a loop 2 the left.
4) And come back down to the last jump
5) And just after the last jump ther is a pole that is ment 2 be teaching the horses to not over jump.
the pole was 2 human steps from the jump, and thats what i measure a landing as (my landing and stride foot steps are right to 4 roy) . so of course the the horses landed on the pole and its a round pole to that was probably rotten.
every one in my group were really anoyed and of course if you talk back to an instructor my mum will scream at you, even thought my mum knew that this was absoultly stupid!!!
So waht do you think??
good or bad??
i hated it!!!

[Quiggles]

That sounds really dangerous!!! Its sad but pony clubs are ranound for doing this sort of stuff. Did you ask why you were doing all of this?

[kvmt10]

yeah it does sound like a very silly set up for gridwork. some people have no commonsense!!

[crazy4horses205]

Yeah, it sounds dangerous from what I could understand....

[naughtygirl]

Hmmm, i dnt agree with the poles, but the jumps r fine, u should b taught how to jump at angles...but yeah...hm the pole behind the last fence should b AT LEAST 2-3 center strides (after landing) away fmr the fence....maybe ur instrustor got it wrong...the pole was ment to be INFRONT of the fence...not behind it? Tricky. Maybe u need to hav an unmounted rally (even half a one) and discuss the used/benafits of doing this grid with ur instructor...or even hav a shoft meeting after/.before the lesson. but yeah

[Solly Jumper]

Just like naughtygirl said, I don't agree with the poles either but the jumping excersize is good practice. I didn't quite understand the course, but from what I can understand it doesn't sound safe at all. Try talking to your coach.

- Meg

[Emzalss@2580]

Originally Posted by crazy4horses205

Yeah, it sounds dangerous from what I could understand....

Ditto, can't say i understood it fully

[minnie_mouse]

i think the instructor was just pushing you guys...maybe a little too quickly? i have seen things like this done MANY times....but with very experianced horses and riders. you must learn to jump from any angle, and be able to ride through most possible combinations. i dont think it would be dangerous for a VERY experianced rider/horse combination (im not saying your not atall...but you know what i meen)

were the poles, canter poles? placed properly apart for 1 stride of canter? (4 human strides) if so, thats fine. and the angles are fine. and the fact that the spread only had one ground pole, thats fine.
poles AFTER jumps are a REALLY good way of teaching horses to pick themselves up after a jump, not to just land in a heap. i pace poles after jumps ALOT. 2 human strides is a little over the top though. i usually place them about 4 human strides out. although i have done a row of 4 bounce jumps, with only 2 human strides inbetween each fence. so ofcourse its possible for the horse. the whole idea of the exercise (i think) was to get your horses to be able to see the stride for themselves, and be able to shorten and lengthen when needed. once your horse becomes accomplished at this....jumping becomes ALOT easier for both horse and rider.
i believe this was a useful exercise BUT dont agree with how the instructor taught her lesson....she was being very thoughtless. she jumped in WAY too deep, and should have started of slower than that. the pole after the jump incident....(with the horses landing on the poles) should have been done differently. the pole should have been 4 hunman strides of from the fence to start with and then she could have slowely brought it in after all of the horses got the idea in their head that they have to land and then take off over the ground pole.

well done for giving it a go though.....those were hard exrcises!

[devilishjumper]

hmmm i'm really not sure, We use poles aswell sometimes before and after jumps. Before to help you get the right distance to the jump we use canter poles or to just get the horse really paying atention in a nice boucy stride. And sometimes after to make the horse pay attention afterward but the poles are never as close as you're describing. But'm i'm not really sure i'm understanding you

[love eagle]

The excerise was useful in learning to jump on angles and stuff. It was just the ground poles that were the problem. The horses kept mucking up the strides because each of our horses were obviously different sizes, so that they had to jump the first jump awkwardly which made it hard to setup for the next one. It wasnt too bad, just extremely difficult to incorporate the trot and canter poles into the whole angled approach. Plus our group is the most advanced, therefore theoretically we should have been able to do it all correctly.

What was very annoying and dangerous, like loz said, was the pole which was just after the jump when we landed. The instructor left it there, saying it was there in order to slow our horses over the jump, if that makes sense. Trying to make them land closer to the jump and not hurry it too much. This would have been ok, but many of the horses in the group were excited to be jumping and were nearly landing on top of the poll. Which everyone thought was very dangerous and stupid - they could have tripped or worse.

Anyway loz, i rode the grid again the day after rally without the poles on the ground and it was really easy to do. Its just those stupid poles which were getting in the way. You should ask your mym to get that Lisa lady to take jumping again - she was awesome.