Here’s some great advice on how you can still practice some great jumping exercises, even if you don’t have access to lots of equipment, from five-star event rider Coral Hardman (née Keen)…
1. Serpentine jumping exercise
This jumping exercise is great for suppleness, straightness and to practice correctly bringing a horse’s shoulders around the turn. Set the four fences up down the centre line of the school and you can then jump it in both directions, making sure you have a square turn to each fence. This exercise highlights if a horse is not even on both reins and it is a good way of checking that you can landing on the correct lead.
2. Jumping exercises: the turnback
The turnback exercise is a great one for making sure the horse is listening and turning in a soft and supple way. It will highlight if your horse is falling in or out through the shoulders and checks that you have control on the landing. It is quite a difficult exercise, so for the less experienced horse and rider, start with poles on the ground and then progress from there when you are ready. If you want to make the exercise more challenging, you can make the roll backs even tighter.
3. Bending line exercise for jumpers
This exercise really makes you plan ahead and works on bending lines. Again, you can start with poles on the floor before raising to a fence. The overall idea is to encourage you as a rider to land and look where you are going, while not letting you horse fall in or out on the bending line.
4. Clock jumping exercise
Set your poles out on at least a 20m circle radius. At the start, focus on keeping the same rhythm over each of the four elements, making sure you have balance and control and that you can bring the horses outside shoulder around, so you are going over the middle of the fence. Once you have achieved this, you can progress to playing around with the adjustability, putting a different number of strides in between the obstacles. Jump and count your strides between the fences – you should be doing the same amount of strides between each fence (if built evenly). You can then progress to adding a stride between them and even building up to two extra strides. Then you can go to the opposite, crank it up and open the horse out in the frame and do less strides. This is quite an intense exercise for horses, so I would recommend giving them lots of breaks. It is also a fairly difficult exercise, so don’t expect to master it on your first attempt!
5. Jumping exercises using barrel
Version one — if you have a barrel or old drum, place this in the middle, either lying flat or stood up, depending on the height you want to jump. Then place the four wings out from it (you could use blocks if you don’t have a barrel). You ride straight over the pole on the take off and the landing, then ride a 10m circle away from the exercise before approaching the next fence. Then ride straight again, followed by another 10m circle. It really gets the horse supple and adjustable and listening to you when you are landing. It is really important to make sure the horse stays straight before circling away.
Version two — in addition to the above, you can also jumping across the middle of exercise over the barrel, you can go from any direction and the poles frame the barrel — so it is a good set up for practising skinny questions.
You may also be interested in…
Don’t have your own jumps? 10 DIY solutions to your problem
One simple pole exercise that can transform your horse’s canter
7 polework exercises to keep your horse interested
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