Trouble In The Poles

[Angus Cattle Girl]

I just got my 9 y/o running real nice through the poles during practice. Weaves perfect and has nice, tight end poles.

Now, whenever we do a run, she turns the 2nd to last pole going down instead of the very last pole. I can feel her slow down and drive her with my feet and voice but she still ducks in, even if I pick up my outside rein. I'm running her to the left now.

Should I try running her to the right to surprise her or what should I do?

-Angus Girl

 

[Miss Daisy]

was she doing this all along or has it just started

 

[Angus Cattle Girl]

She doesn't do it at all in practice but when we do performances and run, she does this.

This is the second time she has done this though.

And at another jackpot, we turned the very end pole and then she braced against my hand and wouldn't get on the other side of the second pole to start weaving, even with my outside spur.

-Angus Girl

 

[chippie]

How often are you practicing the pattern?

If she knows the pattern, don't practice it so much. Do other things to keep her tuned up than keep running the pattern.

We have kids in our 4-H that participate in youth rodeo. They want to practice on the barrels and poles all of the time. I tell them that horses love to run, and when they start making it become work, the horses quit.

I ask them how they would feel if their PE teacher made them keep running laps when they are tired, sweaty and sick of doing it. Then I tell them that horses feel the same way about running the barrels or poles over and over again.

It seems to me that your horse realizes that it can cheat on you at a competition because you can't do anything to stop it. The horse is letting you know that it isn't happy about the job.

If you use spurs all of the time, the horse is probably de-sensitized to them.

Horses that are spurred and whipped to run faster will scotch up and quit running fast too.

 

[Horse Guy]

Sounds "show smart"
Next time it does it at a show make sure that one way or another she does the right pattern.
During practice maybe let the horse have a break/rest at that last pole so the horse starts thinking about it in a more posative way.
BTW I dont run poles so im sure no expert on the subject.

 

[taranr2002]

I have trained lots of horses and thru the years from personal experence I have found that when a horse makes a mistake, alot of times we let it get in our heads and we think about it to much. If you expect a horse to pull a stunt then they more than likely will. I know you think you are pushing past the pole but it took someone else getting on my barrel horse which would duck the 2 barrel to show me that it wasn't the horse as much as the horse reading me because it knew I was expecting it to duck. They can pick up on the slightest things. My advice would be let someone else run the horse and see if it does the same thing. If the horse ducks with them then I would look at going to the right maybe. I hope you figure it out sooner than I did. Good luck.

 

[Angus Cattle Girl]

I think I know what I was doing wrong. I may have started out to close to the poles in the beginning running down to the end. Hopefully that's what happened. It also could be that I was anticipating it. I dunno. I'll just have to see how she does at my next gymkhana-type thing. Thanks for all your help guys.

-Angus Girl

 

[jersey lilly]

Go back to slow work. Walkin and trottin. Set your horse at each end pole, do this for a few days, then gradually start trottin but still stop your horse where you would normally check him for the turn on the end pole.

Somethin else we do to keep horses listenin to the rider instead of antisipating what's comin, is take your poles and put three on one side of the arena and three on the other side.....and just at random go thru all of them...from one side to the other...big s's, criss cross, we add barrels in the mix as well. It is somethin totally different for the horse to do, but still leaves room for fun. don't do this at a run....just a trot.

In the long run slow work makes a horse faster. Don't work your horse more than 15 or 20 minutes on that , then get out and go ride thru a pasture, or woods....trailride, as long as it's somethin relaxin for the horse and he knows it ain't always about "work".