Sakura Hill Farm's Favorite Cavalletti Exercises #4

Some of my favorite cavalletti exercises #3

We are now beginning to transition from the basics to the intermediate.

These are some useful distances between elements of a double, triple or combination:

                                     Pony                                         Horse
Approach at Canter: 
    Bounce                 10-12'                                       11-14'
    One Stride            21-24'                                       24-26.5'
    Two Stride            31-34'                                       34-36'


Approach at Trot: Between Jumps 1 and 2
Bounce                    9-10'                                         9-11'
One Stride               16-18'                                       18'
Two Stride               30'                                            30-32'

                           Between Jumps 2 and 3
One Stride               19-21'                                        21'
                           Between Jumps 3 and 4
One Stride                20-22'                                       22-24'

Trotting Pole Distances:
       Pony                  4-4.5'
       Horse                4.5-4.75'

Placement Poles:
Trot Approach:   9' from base of fence
Canter Approach: 19-20' from base of fence

Average stride length:
                                Pony                                 Horse
Trot                       3.25-4.75'                      4.5-5'
Canter                   Varies by size                  9'-12'

Some of my Favorite Cavalletti Grid Exercises #2

As promised, I will be doing 4-5 exercises a week. Currently, we are still on the basics.

Basic Cavalletti Exercises #2

Some of my Favorite Cavalletti Grid Exercises

Every few blog posts I will be posting a Cavalletti Exercise guide (5 Exercises at a time) that can be printed out and kept on hand for those that have access to cavallettis. I cannot stress enough the importance of cavalletti and grid work for your horse and invaluable skills that can be fine tuned with their use, no matter how green or advanced the horse.

Enjoy!

Cavalletti Grid Exercises: Basic #1

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*Next time: Cavalletti Grid Exercises: Basic-->Medium

Training (Tack) Tip #1: For a little extra umph, when you need it.

While riding in England with Olympian Tim Stockdale I learned some  insider training tips from him which I will  share with you in this and upcoming blogs.

TIP: Save the open front hind boots for the big classes.

At home we tend to not use hind boots at all on our performance horses, unless they have specific interference issues. If they do have interference issue, we use regular fetlock boots such as These.

For the big money classes, when you need that extra little something to ensure that the back rail of the oxer stays up, you might try using open front hind ankle boots such as These. For sensitive horses, the elasticated strap is milder than some of the other boot alternatives, however it might not be enough for the less sensitive horses.

Tim preferred this brand of open front fetlock boots for his big classes, the Veredus  Pro Jump Fetlock Boots. The straps of these boots weren't elasticated and therefore could be pulled quite tight to make the less sensitive horse kick out the little bit extra.

            Monica & Tisolde competing at Jacksonville with her full length hind boots.