Trot Pole Exercise: Prevent Rushing

"make a circle at the end"

This week's exercise was thus:

o    o    o    8 (one stride) 8 (two stride) 8

At first, all of these were simply poles. As we worked through the exercise, the last 3 parts were taken up into jumps- again, starting small and building up into verticals. Ruby HATES white poles for whatever reason, so the challenge is to get her to go over without looking straight down each time she gets ready to go over one.

The first time through, keeping the exercise at poles. The key here is to keep constant leg, look up, and aim for the center of the poles (and keep my lag back, which I seem to have forgotten here...)

To keep Ruby from freaking out, Connie sets the jumps up one at a time instead of moving all three components up at once.  I had Ruby trot the exercise, acting as if the jump was no different than the pole the previous run through

Although I wanted Ruby to trot the final exercise (we are working on muscle building, so trot work is better for us), but I do not punish her for jumping. As long as she is engaged from behind, I slow her after and continue through the line. 

This week was not much different than last week. Ruby has a tendency to rush after the last element in these gymnastics. The second we clear the last component, I begin to ask her for a circle. In the past, this has helped deal with rushing a TON!