What Walk Poles Reveal
It will come as no surprise to most of you that I absolutely love using walk poles! I recommend them to clients and use them daily with my own horses. There are so many benefits to walk poles and you may be thinking that they look simple, but never underestimate them. Walk poles are one of the most powerful exercises we can use to improve posture, coordination, body awareness and control.
They are also incredibly revealing because everything happens more slowly, I like to think of walk poles as a microscope. They give us time to look closely at how the horse plans and organises each step. A simple line of poles can highlight little differences that may be much harder to see in trot or canter.
As your horse walks over poles, if they lose their rhythm, hollow, or tap a pole, is there something within the horse's body making the exercise difficult? Are the poles at the wrong distance? Or perhaps the exercise is simply too challenging at this stage. These are the questions we should be trying to answer, but before we blame the horse, we must always look carefully at the question we have asked.
Walk is Not Easy
Walk is a four-beat gait with no moment of suspension. Each foot leaves and meets the ground separately, so the horse is continually transferring weight and reorganising the body over a changing base of support.
As the horse walks over poles, the choice of where to put each foot becomes more limited. They have to look at the poles, assess the distance and decide when, where and how to place every limb. This requires excellent communication between the eyes, brain, nervous system, muscles and joints.
It's not just about picking the feet up. Foot placement is just as important as foot height.
Imagine walking along a smooth road. You can do it without giving much thought to where you're putting your feet. Now imagine walking through a wood over roots and fallen branches. You naturally slow down, look, engage your body and become much more aware of every step. Pole work creates a similar response in the horse.
Look at The Whole Horse
It's tempting to judge success on whether your horse clears every pole, but getting to the other side without touching anything doesn't necessarily mean the exercise was performed well.
Watch your horse before, over and after the poles and ask yourself:
Is the four-beat walk still clear and regular?
Does the horse lower the head and neck to look and assess?
Does the back stay lifted and mobile, or does the horse raise the head and hollow?
Does the thorax stay supported between the forelimbs?
Are the steps similar from left to right?
Does one hindlimb take a shorter or wider step?
Does the horse drift consistently to one side?
Are the feet placed quietly and purposefully?
Is the horse better organised after one or two repetitions?
Now, I'm not saying go looking for faults. Simply observe how your horse solves the problem. One of the reasons I love pole work is that, when the exercise is right, we can soften, allow the horse freedom and let the poles do the work.
Troubleshooting
When an exercise doesn't go well, always check your poles before deciding that the horse is weak, stiff or uncoordinated.
There's no magic distance that's correct for every horse. The ideal distance depends on conformation, natural stride length, posture, strength, confidence, the surface you're working on and the aim of the exercise. This will also change when poles are raised.
Walk poles are very often placed too far apart. If the horse has to stretch and reach for every pole, the body may become longer and flatter. The thorax can drop between the forelimbs, the head may come up and the back can move into extension. This is the opposite of the posture many of us hoped the poles would encourage.
If the poles are too close, the horse may shuffle, hesitate or alter the footfall sequence. Raising the poles increases the demand and usually means the distance needs to be a little shorter. The number of poles matters too. Five poles are physically and mentally more demanding than one or two.
If your horse struggles with an exercise, it's important to change just one thing at a time:
Adjust the distance
Lower the poles
Use fewer poles
Return to one pole
Make the approach straighter
Give the horse more freedom through the head and neck
Allow more time to look and think
If you change the distance, height, number and approach all at once, you won't know which alteration made the difference.
If one small change produces a calmer, more regular and better organised walk, the original problem was probably influenced by the set-up or by the horse not yet understanding the exercise.
If the same pattern remains after sensible adjustments, the poles may be showing you something about the horse. Perhaps the horse always drifts in the same direction, shortens the step of one limb, or becomes less coordinated with repetition.
This is useful information, but it's not a diagnosis. The cause could relate to strength, mobility, comfort, confidence, previous experience, neurological function or level of training. Poles can reveal a pattern; they cannot tell us automatically why it's happening.
Marked or persistent asymmetry, repeated stumbling, pain-related behaviour or a sudden change in movement should never simply be trained through. Ask an appropriately qualified professional for advice.
Try this exercise at home
Start with one pole on the ground. Lead your horse or ride over it in a relaxed, purposeful walk on both reins. Give your horse enough freedom to use their head and neck and look at the pole.
Then gradually build up to a short line of correctly spaced poles. If possible, ask someone to video your horse from the side and from in front or behind where it's safe. Compare the first attempt with the later ones.
Ask yourself:
1. What changed when I introduced the pole?
2. Did my horse become better organised with repetition?
3. What happened when I changed one part of the set-up?
The answers are much more valuable than simply counting how many times your horse cleared the poles.
Small exercise big effect
Walk poles can help develop core stability, thoracic sling function, spinal control, coordination and confidence. For me, their greatest value is that they teach us to look more closely and train more thoughtfully.
In the Walking into Strength webinar, I will explore exactly what to look for, how distances and pole placement affect the horse and how to decide what to change when an exercise does not go to plan.
This is the first of a three-part series of webinars that looks at The Power of Poles covering walk, trot and canter poles.
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