Fun jumping exercises for horses
Fun jumping exercises for horses
Fun jumping exercises for horses and riders are extremely important. Horses and humans learn better when they are relaxed and having fun. High-pressure environments are definitely not ideal to train your horse in. And as far as us humans are concerned, showjumping is an expensive sport, you at least want to be having some fun while doing it. That being said, you also want to improve. I feel this exercise covers both fun and improvement.
Here the young horse and novice rider learn to travel nice and smoothly and evenly through a related distance. There are a few warm-up exercises and routines you do before you get to the real thing. So you’ll be fully prepared to canter around this exercise by the time you’ve gone through the warm-up routine. I’ve also added a gymnastic halfway through the track, this will teach you to balance your horse up and get back on its hocks as opposed to getting longer and faster as you go through the track.
Watch the video for all the details
How to set up these fun jumping exercises for horses
Ok so here’s the setup. It was a little tricky trying to fit everything in without the jumps getting in the way of the paths you need to ride. So lay all the polls out first, and imagine the paths you’re likely to ride, then make sure you can get a clear ride to and away from all the jumps. Once that’s sorted, build the jumps.
Jump 1 and 2
So let’s start off with the line on the top long side of your arena. So it’s a vertical to an oxer and they are spaced 17.5 paces apart for four strides. You then add the four placing poles 3.5 paces apart. You then add the placing pole on the take-off side of the vertical. This time it’s 3 paces from the vertical.
Jump 5
Then we do the gymnastic down the bottom long side of the arena. So it’s a nice welcoming little cross, then one stride to another vertical and two strides to an oxer. So from the cross to the first vertical it’s 7 paces for one stride. And then from the vertical to the oxer it’s 11 paces for 2 strides. Then either side of the middle vertical you add a placing pole 3.5 paces away from it.
Jump 3 & 4 and Jump 7 & 8
Then diagonally across the arena, you set up this line. Vertical to an oxer. You jump the line both ways so make sure there’s a ground line on both sides of each of these jumps. So it’s a four-stride related distance so you set the jumps up 20 paces apart.
Jump 6
Then the last jump is this oxer between the gymnastic and the line you just set up at an angle like this.
And finally, you squeeze this little cavaletti line in just below the first line you set up. It’s a 5 stride related distance and it paces out at 22 paces.
Course plan
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