What distance apart should you place trot and canter poles?

Question

What distance apart should you place trot and canter poles?

Answer 1

Depends on the size of the horse/pony's strides. As a rule, trotting poles should be about 3 feet apart and canter poles 9 feet (for a 'bounce'). However these need to be altered depending on the horse's stride length.

Answer 2

guess about 6-12 ft for the canter and 2-6ft for the trot at first  just to see where your horses feet fall

then move accordinlgy to where they palce there feet

the hoofprints shouwld be evenly in the middle of each pole

Answer 3

Trotting poles are an average of 4 to 4 1/2 feet apart, depending on the stride of the horse. If you are working in a group setting with many different sized horses, you'll just have to watch them and adjust them to the average distance.

Canter poles may be spaced anywhere from 9 to 12 feet, again depending on the horse and also on how forward the horse is moving and what comes after the canter poles. I would try about 10 feet first and then adjust accordingly.

On average a horse will canter 3.65 meters with every canter stride and you need to allow approximately 1.9 for take off and 1.9 for landing when jumping from canter.

The distance in between poles on average is:

Walk poles - 0.90cm apart.

Trot poles - 1.25 m apart.

Canter - 3 m apart.

One stride double - 5.5 to 6m when approached from trot and 5.5 to 7.5 when approached from canter.

A two stride double - 11 to 14 m when approached in canter.

Related four/five stride double - 18 to 25 m.

Bounce from trot - 2.75 to 3.65 m

Bounce from canter -3.65 to 4 m.

Where and how you place the poles may depend on your purpose in setting ground poles in the first place. If your intention is to get the horse to pay attention to his feet and adjust his stride, you may want to vary the distance. If you are working on the rider's ability to judge distances and set the horse up properly, the specific distances, based on the horse's stride may be in order.

Answer 4

Trot overs are usually placed at 3'-3'6" apart and lope overs at an angle (like an hour, minute, and second hand on a clock) should be at 6-7 feet at the center of each pole to the center of the next.  If placed in a shape like an M they should be place 20-24" apart at the center of the poles.  Here are some pretty good diagrams on the first page of the pdf:  http://www.mn4hhorse.com/04ref/pubs/Rule...