Bouncy Mares

I've been playing with different gymnastic lines in the arena over the past couple weeks.  Today we had a grid of five verticals set up with a ground pole on each side of the exercise.  It actually started out with a ground pole (green), then one vertical, then all the rest were ground poles.  As the horses got the idea of entering the grid and cantering through and out I gradually raised all the blue jumps to be 18".

These videos were taken at the end of the ride, so the horses were getting tired by then.  They all still tried, though, which says a lot for their work ethic considering it was about 90 degrees by then.  Grid work over multiple bounces like this is very challenging for a horse, because it requires a lot of core strength and thrust from their haunches. 

June and Joan

Alice and Beauty

Rain and Jasi

Me and Raven