Showjumping training tips on how to ride difficult turns well. By difficult turns, I’m referring to tight turns, or what is often referred to as rollbacks. There is definitely a way you should ride them and also a way you shouldn’t ride them.
As with life, in showjumping, there are never really any guarantees that everything will work out perfectly. But if you follow the correct steps there is more of a chance things will work out the way you want them to. And conversely, there are certain things that will more likely have a negative impact on the outcome you’re hoping for.
Here are 5 showjumping tips you can use to ride your turns well:
Tip 1
There’s a saying in showjumping and it goes like this. “If you creep, you get deep”. What it means is, if you allow, or cause your canter stride to shorten too much, you’ll get a deep takeoff spot. This happens really easily on a tight turn. Your horses canter stride length usually shortens naturally on a tight turn. You can however prevent this. You do so by riding forward through the tight part of your turn. So in short, keep your horse stepping forward through your turn.
Tip 2
Look early!!! Tight turns usually mean you have a limited amount of space and time to find your takeoff spot. So the remedy for this is to look early. Look at the jump you are approaching as early as possible to find your takeoff spot. You need to make use of every second possible, it’s no good leaving it to the last moment.
Tip 4
Support with your outside leg. Some horse tend to drift of the line you intend riding. This will make the distance you take to the jump slightly longer. And this will make your takeoff spot a little further away than you intended. I predominantly us my outside leg through the turn to prevent this.
Tip 5
The last of my showjumping training tips is practice practice practice. There’s an art to riding to a jump off a tight turn. The best way to practice this is by practicing jumping a single jump on a circle. Make it nice and small and work on all the tips I mentioned above. You want them to come naturally to you without thinking about them.
The video below is a nice little exercise you can put up to help you train difficult turns
Setup
Jump 1
Alright, so the setup is as follows. You start off by setting up this little gymnastic down this long side of your arena. It needs to be roughly in the top corner, and can’t go further than roughly the halfway mark. Ok, so the measurements are as follows. From the oxer to the 2 verticals on both sides is seven paces. Then you put a placing pole exactly in the middle. So it 3.5 paces each side of the poles.
Jump 2 and 3
You then set up this seven stride related distance on a curve. I found that it rode quite long because it’s on quite a tight turn, So I’d recommend you play it safe and measure it out a pace short at 31 paces. Keep in mind that you need to leave space for this related distance as well.
Jump 4
You then move on to the two stride double combination, starting with an oxer, and then 12 paces away to a vertical.
Jump 5 and 6
And finally, we move onto the line I previously mentioned. Starting with a vertical and 20 paces away, for 4 strides, the track ends off with an oxer. And that’s it, folks, you’re all set up and ready to go.
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