Some Pole Idea's.

I was going through some old paperwork, when I came across some idea's for using poles in riding sessions which came from a RDA Instructors training day several years ago, so I thought I would share them, they can be adapted to suit your riders abilities.

Most of these idea's only need a few poles.

1.  Make 'Roads', 'Tunnels', 'Rivers' and 'Bridges' by using two poles and get the riders to walk between them, the 'Roads' can  be straight or in a zig zag. It could be a short or long 'Road'.
     When the riders are walking through the tunnel they could lean forward, again there could be more than one 'tunnel' to go through. For the 'Rivers' get the riders to say splish splash and as they go over the 'Bridge' they could sit up and look over the bridge.

2. Make shapes with the poles on the ground, then using matching cards with shapes on the rider can pick a shape and go and stand in the matching shape. A variation is to have a bucket in the shapes and so riders can place something in the bucket of their chosen shape.

3.Riders can stop between two poles, which can be narrow or wide. A variation is to get the rider to count to a number before walking on. The rider could be asked to walk over one pole and halt before the horse walks over the second pole, the distance could be altered to make it more challenging for the rider.

4.Riders could be given a coloured item and then they walk over/ through the matching coloured poles and put in the matching coloured bucket. This is good for colour association and also encouraging interaction between helpers and the riders.

5.Place two poles either side of  X , get riders to stop between the poles, then progress to doing a 10m circle around to B and back to X, then progress the exercises to do a 10m circle around to E. This can be adapted to halting at X each time, counting to a number before walking on.

6.Place poles to make a square, allowing gaps at the corners, ask the riders to walk over a pole and then over the next pole in front of them. The variations to this are asking the rider to turn left or right,after walking over the first pole, to walk over the other poles. Ask the riders to walk over a pole then through a gap in the corners or vice versa.

7. Using your square of poles ask the riders to walk around the out side of them in the shape of a square or in the shape of a circle.

8.Ask the riders to walk through the corners across the square to the opposite corner.
A variation to this ask the riders to halt in the square.

9. On the theme of the square use two poles on each side, so riders can walk between the poles on each side of the square. the variations to this exercise are asking the riders to halt between one set of poles, then increasing it to two sets and so on. Ask the riders to halt between one set of poles, walk through the next set and halt through the next set.

10. Place the poles on a 20m circle, ask the riders to walk over the poles to make the shape of a circle. the variations to this is to ask the riders to walk on the outside of the poles while walking the circle, or walk on the inside of the poles while on the circle.


These are just a few ideas, which can be adapted further. They  all  help to improve the walk to halt transition's, the riders balance. Some of these exercises could be used for trot to walk transitions.

The Magic of the Horse.

I have just been looking on the web and came across this interesting article which seems to explain the value of therapy riding which could be of use to an instructor/coach new to teaching or coaching the disabled rider.  

Please read this as it explains why therapy riding is so good.    
It's "The magic of the Horse"






The magic of the horse.

Acorn and squirrels session update.

It has been very busy in the riding session over the last couple of weeks, all the riders have been attending, the new rider that has joined the 12.30pm session is doing really well,he has ridden with another group in the past so is quite use to horses and the movement that they give.

The weather has been quite warm and dry so it has made everyone seem happy which is always nice. We have been lucky enough to have some university students come and help us,some have been with us last year,so it's always nice to see them again,most of them ride with the university riding club,so it's nice that they are prepared to help and see how much pleasure and therapy the riders get out of their riding.

The riders have all been working very hard, they have been practicing steering through the cones and stopping at the letters around the arena, I have been getting them to think about keeping a distance between their horse that they are riding and the horse in front of them, they are just starting to get this really well.

I have three riders in the 12.30pm ride that are really doing well with their steering and so I have been getting the leaders to hold the lead rein in their hand furthest from the horse, letting the hand and arm closest the the horse just hang down, so that the lead rein will only be used if necessary, so the riders could do all their own steering down through the cones, they did this a number of times changing direction as well. I then suggested that perhaps they could try and go down the cones off the lead rein with the leader walking beside them. They agreed to do it although it was visible that even though nothing much had changed and they had happily gone down the cones pretty much on their own already,they were worried, they attempted it and all three of them did it first time through the cones, their faces changed completely and they were chuffed with themselves. 

   To a lot of my able-bodied riders that wouldn't have seemed very much walking through a line of 5 cones like that, to these riders it is a great achievement. Saying this one of the rider travels on her own by bus to the riding session each week,so she not only learns how to ride a horse, she learns other life skills in a way which is enjoyable to her.