In this video, Christian demonstrates how to execute a nearside shot without crossing over the line of the ball, a common foul. He shows how to practice the shot with your horse so that its performance, as well as your own, will be consistent on game day. Another great video by Christian Moon demonstrating how sound horsemanship will lead to good striking in polo.
In this video, Christian plays Hanalei in her 6th ever chukker. Hanalei’s balance is good enough that she is doing natural lead changes when necessary, but she’s not quite at the level of queued flying lead changes yet.
Christian talks about acclimating the green horse to other horses on the field, and the swinging mallets that come with them. He talks about introducing the ride-off and using the trot to help balance the horse by changing diagonals rather than being forced to balance the horse by changing leads at the canter.
And perhaps most important of all, Christian uses the chukker to help reinforce in Hanalei’s mind that he will not lead her into painful situations. When she accepts this, she will truly be able to start enjoying the game. Enjoy!
By Tiana and Dale Smicklas
Trainers exercise polo horses at the Santa Barbara Polo Club in Summerland. Photo by Stephen Osman / LA Times
By this time of year, many clubs, both arena and outdoor, are gearing up for a full season of winter polo. If you play at one of these clubs, you are likely beginning to think about getting yourself and your horses ready for the season. Don’t wait until it’s too late. As your season approaches, get your horses into a fitness routine so they will be ready when the season starts. If you don’t give your horses enough time to prepare, they likely won’t last the season.
Injuries are much more likely to occur when horses are not fit enough. Imagine not exercising for months then deciding to jog for 10 days before running a marathon. It is equally ridiculous to play a horse that has only had a week or two of exercise. Why risk injury to begin your season? … Continue Reading
In this, the sixth video in the Schooling a Green Horse for Polo series, Hanalei plays in her first chukker! In a very few weeks from her first introduction to a saddle, Hanalei has made great progress.
Notice that Christian takes care to keep the intensity and stress low and allows Hanalei to enjoy running with the other horses. He does not attempt any ride-offs or rollbacks, no sliding stops or sharp turns and he keeps Hanalei at a trot or hand-canter at most. Christian’s care will allow Hanalei to develop a positive experience of the game and to look at polo as something fun rather than a burden, or worse yet, something to fear.
By Christian Moon
Your new youngster is going well. It has learned to trust you on the ground and allows you to swing the mallet, but you have not added in the ball yet. Maybe you made a mistake and figured that the horse would allow you to stick and ball since it allows you to ride, or perhaps you got a roping horse and figured it might be fine to stick and ball it! Whatever the case the horse has begun to shy from the ball and it might just be that you’re introduction to the ball was a bad one.
In the horse’s mind you are a no longer an adversary. It is plain that despite your eyes being on the front of your head, you don’t eat horses but instead you feed horses, care for and in general love horses. You have become the head of the heard of two and as such should there be any trouble your horse will make sure you are the first to know. If the wind blows a bag through his pen as you walk by he will run to you to “tell” you there is a threat in the form of a bag. He might even bang into you if you are that close and then turn and look, ears pricked, in the direction of this threat, as if to say “if you don’t do something about that then I will.”
The same can happen when you are on board. The bag, one of those brown bags that cover the dates in Indio, blows across the field as you are stick and balling. You’re horse immediately gets tense and then turns and bolts. You feel like you have no control as you’re horse takes the bridle and splits. Well the truth is you should have taken note of his warning as soon as it was given. He warned you by becoming tense and getting ready for action. It’s what you do next that counts and could dispel his fear and since you did nothing he took it upon himself to leave the scene. … Continue Reading
Image Credit: Popular Mechanics Magazine (Oct. 1924)
The most underused piece of equipment at the polo club, after foot mallets, is probably the wooden practice horse. Chances are your club has one and chances are you’ve hopped on once or twice to almost immediately become bored with it and to idly wonder if it was even worth the effort of you put in to saddling it up.
If used incorrectly, the wooden practice horse is incredibly boring. If used incorrectly, it is not worth the effort you put in to saddling it up. But, as you’ve probably noticed, they key phrase here is “if used incorrectly.”
In this article I want to explain the proper way to use the wooden horse and to talk a bit about why it is important.
The primary advantage of the wooden horse is that it allows you to practice your swing without worrying about the complex equation that is the horse. With the wooden horse you are able to exactly reproduce a given attack over and over again, ad infinitum, without variation. You are able to make mistakes without repercussion – no need to worry about accidentally hitting the horse’s legs or falling off – and so are able to practice and perfect variations to your swing that would be risky at best on a live horse. … Continue Reading
In this 5th installment of the Schooling a Green Horse for Polo series, Christian works with Hanalei on her stops. This is perhaps the 10 to 14th time she has been ridden.
Christian discusses the importance of recognizing problems quickly and addressing them immediately lest you unwittingly reinforce undesirable behaviors. Hanalei has begun to halt from voice command alone now: “Whoa, whoa, whoa” and she is beginning to understand directions from the leg. We see Christian and Hanalei work on halting from the walk, trot, and canter in this video as well.
In my opinion, the best way to fine-tune your swing is on a wooden horse in a hitting cage or pit. This allows you to reproduce the exact same situation over and over again without worrying about your approach to the ball, the lay of the ball, horse fatigue, or anything else. You are allowed to focus exclusively on your swing. Practicing like this will help to get the correct swing mechanics locked into “muscle memory” so when you’re on the field you can focus more on tactics and less on swing mechanics.
Here are some plans to build your own hitting cage and wooden horse, by G.R. Pocock.
Here is a link on how to make a practice horse out of a metal drum … Continue Reading
By Christian Moon
The stop, or halt, is probably the most important thing a horse must learn to play polo
The snow is piled up outside so I thought I’d take some time to put pen to paper on what is probably the most important thing a horse can learn for it’s polo career. The stop.
The stop plays into most of the things we do in polo, and in training the young horse it is the prelude to roll backs. A good stop need not be a fight and when done well gives all confidence.
So how does the stop start?
I like to start on the ground using a head collar or bosal with a large loose fitting nose piece. At this point it is integral that your horse has been taught to lead with you walking at the neck or shoulder. That is to say that the horse will lead while you follow. You should be able to direct the horse’s head by holding up a hand to turn the horse away from you and you should be able to do this on either side. I try to avoid pulling the horse toward me in this exercise since I think it confuses the message. You’ll see why later.
I do this in the arena with the horse nearest the fence to keep him straight. Obviously I walk to the inside of the horse and let the fence turn the horse in the corners. As the horse progresses I come off the outside fence and turn the horse toward the fence using my hand. I hold my hand up to the horses eye and cause him to move away without touching him. This makes for a voluntary bend in the horse’s neck and through his body. If you push the head away then you begin to build resistance similar to if you pull the head around. Pulling will create the same resistance.
Line up by the horse’s shoulder or neck and take the rope of your head collar with loose nose band in the hand nearest the horse just under the chin. You need to be able to lift the loose nose band off the bridge of the horse’s nose so the nose band should be fairly stiff. … Continue Reading
This is the fourth video in the Schooling a Green Horse for Polo series. In this video, Christian rides Hanalei for the 5th time (or 6th or 7th time, but who’s counting). He talks about “playing” with problem areas to get the horse to more easily accept tack and commands, preparing the horse for the roll-back maneuver and continuing to practice halting.
Later, Christian discusses the advantages of walk and trot work vs the canter, leading off with a turn after a halt attempt to keep the horse’s attention, and overcoming rein interference at the canter (a distraction that could be keeping the horse from moving forward properly).
And finally, we get a look at familiarizing the horse to the big hand movements she can expect from polo.
Recent Comments