Stadium or show jumping consists of a course of eight or more fences, which the horse
and rider must jump. There is a pattern in which you must jump the course that the rider
memorizes and then completes. Everyone jumps the course and the person with the least
number of faults wins. You can get faults three different ways: knocking down poles on a
fence, refusing a fence, or on a time fault. When you knock down rails on a fence, it
doesn’t matter how many you knock down, it’s four faults. Refusing a fence is also four
faults, and three refusals results in disqualification. A time fault is received when you
come in over the time limit set for the course. Depending on how much over the time you
are, the more faults you get. If there is a tie for first, or any place a jump-off is used to
determine the winner. A jump-off is a course where the fastest time and least number of
faults wins. When competing in a jump-off you must plan the shortest paths to each fence
and some sharp turns or turns midair must be used. In a jump-off a quarter of a second
can be the difference between winning and losing.
Not all horses are cut out for jumping. Unlike dressage, some horses just can’t do it. The
ideal jumper horse has strong hindquarters, a nicely-shaped neck, a sloping shoulder,
strong feet, sloping pasterns, deep girth, and a medium lengthed back. He must be a
careful horse, a lazy horse that doesn’t watch out or have correct form can be dangerous
when jumping. Good form over fences consists of a nice rounded outline, knees square,
neck arched forward- not straight up or collected. Some gymnastic dressage work with
your jumper can be very beneficial to his suppleness and form over the fences. In fact one
of the most essential suppling exercises for a jumper, my trainer even uses it, is circling.
As simple as a circle, but it helps your horse bend in different directions and loosen up.
Circling before jumping is as important as stretching before exercise.
A horse’s first jumping lesson is walking over a ground pole. Eventually he’ll progress to
walking down a line of poles, then trotting over a pole, trotting over a line of poles, and
once he can correctly trot a line of poles a small jump is placed at the end of the line.
Even after your horse learns how to jump, you shouldn’t just jump all the time. It’s
important that you still work on flatwork as well. Once you’ve taught your horse how to
jump, he’s not very likely to forget how. When we take lessons we start out with our
flatwork, then we do grids. The grids usually have four trot poles to an X fence, then a
stride to either a straight-across or a small oxer. Our trainer changes the fences in the
grid sometimes, but it always has the same basic idea. Most of lesson time is spent
working on the grid. Grids help the horse’s form and suppleness, and also help the rider’s
technique and position. Then we spend the last five or ten minutes doing courses.
Basically this is all the practice you and your horse need. It’s not necessary to spend a
half-hour jumping the same course over and over again.
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