Horse Facts

Jumping

Jumping is an exercise that most riders will do to increase the muscles in the horses hind-quarters, but the horses that you see on the TV didn't learn how to jump that high by themselves! It takes a skilled, passionate and determined rider to teach a horse how to jump. If you wanted your horse to jump, you need to teach them the basic riding skills before even considering putting up some poles. Transitions from halt to walk to trot to canter all should be in the minds of the horse and rider when jumping. The horse needs to have full confidence in the rider and vice versa to be able to jump.

After warming up the horse for at least 10 minutes with transitions and circles, you may begin going over some poles on the ground. After teaching the horse not to jump the poles and to go over them in walk, trot, canter and even gallop, try putting a small jump at the end of the pole sequence on the ground. Try this on both reins of the arena until proceeding to the next stage.

If the horse is confidently jumping the jump in canter, then proceed on to taking away the poles, leaving only the jump. If the horse is jumping the jump but sometimes knocks the jump over then try adding 1 pole in front of the jump to show the horse where the take-off point is. When the horse has mastered the take off pole then remove the pole and go ahead to jump it.

Once the horse has mastered the single jump then increase the height of the jump. Do not make the jump too high straight away as this may cause the horse to bolt or dodge the jump and lose the confidence. Only increase the height of the jump by about 5cm each time and jump a jump at the same height until the horse is clearing it perfectly.

Now we will go onto the rider. The riders position affects the way the horse jumps greatly and can cause back aches for the horse if not done correctly. The position is simple. All you need to do is maintain the leg and foot position of normal riding but stand up in your stirrups and lean forward so that your leg is bent and you are at a clear view between your horses ears. Make sure not to lean on your horses neck though because the rider could get hit in the face by the horses neck at the take off point or the weight on the neck could cause the horse to be unable to lift the head high enough to jump and crash into the jump...ouch!

The main thing about jumping is the confidence that the horse has in you and you have in your horse so if the horse is afraid or scared of the surroundings or even you, then try to increase your bond before trying anything like jumping!