Introducing the idea of Serpentines.

In this weeks riding session, I wanted the riders to work on turning and bending, carrying on with the same theme of steering from the week before. I wanted to introduce loops in the riding sessions with the idea of working toward doing serpentines.

I set the arena up with help from the helpers, as shown below.

I used this set up in a variety of ways depending on what the riders were able to do.

• I got the riders to bend in and out of the cones down each side of the arena, this was a good warming up exercise for both riders and the horses.
• To practise stopping, I got the riders to stop at a cone.
• The riders were then then asked when they got to either A or C to go around the first cone and then turn and go down through the poles,then go around the next cone which was before either B or E, before walking down through the next set of poles, then the riders were asked to walk around the next cone before coming down through the next set of poles. To finish of this exercise the riders walked around the last cone to go around to either C or A.
• Once the riders got the idea of this exercise, I got  them to stop between the poles.
• The riders had to stop through the first set of poles and collect something which had been placed on a tray then carrying on the loop around to the poles in the middle, stopping before placing the item in the bucket.
• The rider then did the opposite, stopping at a bucket and taking out an item and placing it back on to the tray.

Some other things that could be done with this are.

• When the riders were stopped between the poles, they could count to a number before walking on,or they could be asked a horse care question before carrying on.
• When the rides stop between the poles in the middle they could take something out of one bucket and place in the other bucket placing the object  into the other hand to drop it in.
• When the riders ride through the poles, after riding the third set of poles the riders could then carrying on around to come back down through the poles in the middle, then back down through the first pair of poles.
• The riders could walk a circle around each cone. 
• The riders could stop by each cone, either when they are walking down the long sides or when they are doing the loops around to the poles. again they could be asked to count to a number or be asked a horse care question.
• Riders could be taught how to do a figure of eight using the poles as markers.