4 minute read
Serpentine exercise
by hqmagazine
SERPENTINE EXERCISE WITH ROTOVETTI
TEXT: KELLY O’CONNOR
HQ are delighted to have teamed up with Rotoflo and Kelly O’Connor to provide a series of exercises for riders of all levels. Rotoflo produces the Rotovettis used for this exercise, and we can highly recommend getting yourself a few sets of these cost-effective and versatile training tools. Stay tuned in later issues for more from Kelly and the team.
AIM OF THE EXERCISE
• Getting comfortable turning corners
• Promotion of self-balance in the horse
• Discouraging the rider from balancing the horse on their hands around a turn
WHAT YOU WILL NEED
• 3 x poles
• 3-5 sets of Rotovettis
SET-UP
• Set up your poles in a straight line down the middle of the arena. Place these poles on the Rotovettis.
• Take four free-standing Rotovettis and place them in between your poles where you would like to execute your turns.
WHAT TO DO
Novice:
For the novice horse and rider or for the first time executing your serpentine exercise, start at the walk. This will allow you and your horse the time to understand the exercise and to feel any skewness or imbalance.
• Entering the exercise, focus on keeping your horse with a slight inside bend in the direction you are going. Do not allow his body to fall out through the shoulder or hindquarters. You can prevent this by keeping a consistent outside contact from your hand and having your outside leg slightly back and connected against the horse’s side.
NOTE: If you restrict your horse's head and neck, preventing him from stretching over the pole you also limit his ability to bascule or round his back over the pole. This in turn won’t allow him to lift his hindquarters to clear the pole.
• Allow your horse to walk over the pole. You should encourage your horse to keep his head low over the pole to allow his back to stretch over the pole and lift his hindquarters clear when stepping over it.
• On the landing side, you want to maintain the consistent pace of your walk and not allow the horse to fall behind your leg or contact. You also do not want them to run away from your leg or push against the contact. This means that you need to maintain a balanced connection between hand and leg, correcting with a half halt and your leg to rebalance if necessary.
• In the turn of the serpentine focus on having the correct inside bend, where the horse rounds their body around your leg. It’s important that you maintain an outside leg and hand contact, so the horse doesn’t fall to the outside or over bend to the inside. When turning your horse, you don’t want a backward pull on the rein; you want to take your inside rein away from the horse’s neck to guide them around the turn.
• Now on the straighter part of the S, you prepare your horse for the change in direction. First, you need to straighten up your body by bringing your hands together evenly next to the horse’s neck and placing both legs evenly against the horse’s side. Allow your horse to go over the pole and then adjust your aids for the new bend. Establish your new inside rein and bend and the new outside supporting aids.
• It’s really important that you focus on yourself as a rider and the aids you are giving to your horse. If you pull back on the reins, it must be to indicate to the horse to slow down or rebalance himself. You cannot use your reins as a safety mechanism for reassurance for yourself, as this often causes the horse to start to lean on the your hands and lose all self-carriage.
Medium:
Once you are really comfortable in the walk, I would suggest you move up into the medium level of the exercise, which would be in trot. All the same leg and hand aids remain.
Advanced:
Before you move up into the more advanced level of the exercise and ask your horse to canter, you and your horse must be fully comfortable in the trot. Once again, the leg and hand aids remain the same.
If you get to a point where you feel like things are happening too fast and your horse doesn’t understand what you want from them, go back to a trot or a walk.
I would recommend repeating the exercise.