Serpentine Over Fences: Another Useful Jumping Exercise

Holly and I filmed a demonstration of the Serpentine Over Fences jumping exercise this week. I have seen Holly use this exercise several times. If you like the Circle of Death, I think that this exercise is even more difficult and very useful. It builds on the principles a horse and rider can learn from the Circle of Death such as coordination of the rider's aids including eyes, hands, leg and seat to choose an appropriate track to the fences. However, in the serpentine exercise, the rider must change her track by jumping straight over each jump and shaping a nice round turn before developing straightness to the next fence. The track is shaped like an "S" so the horse changes direction after each fence.

This was Patrick's first time through the exercise. I like it for him because he has a little bit of an outside line-diagonal line-outside line hunter mentality. I like exercises that involve turns and jumps coming up quickly because it really sharpens him up and gets him listening to my aids better. It prepares him to be more handy and to execute the challenges of an equitation course. Although we didn't always get the perfect track, I could tell that he was starting to "get it". He felt more responsive as we continued with the exercise and perhaps as I gave him better directions with my aids. The exercise seemed to tire him out even though we kept the jumps low. If you think about it, it's quite a few jumps in a row with a lot of tight turns. Challenging! I like it!