Everything You Need to Know about Show Jumping Gymnastics – Part 3

Welcome to the third part of the Show Jumping Gymnastics series! Before starting, it’s important to remember some basics:

Show Gymnastics are very useful for –

• Improve your horse’s technique.
• Help your horse to focus.
• Improve your balance and your horse’s balance as well.
• Strengthen show jumping horses’ muscles and joints.
• Dealing with horses’ problems like “charging at fences”.
• Improving horses’ scope.
• Improve your riding seat and jumping position.
• Introducing green riders and horses to jump.
• Confident boosters.

And more — Show jumping gymnastics brings endless possibilities to the table. Remember not to over stress your horse and don’t repeat these exercises excessively. Because doing so may injure your horse and will definitely cause more harm than good. Also, if you just found this article, please read the previous chapter here. Remember to always perform a thorough warm-up and cool-down before and after each session to keep your horse happy, healthy, and sound.

Measuring Tips for Show Jumping Gymnastics

When building your grids, it’s essential to measure distances properly. When you are setting trotting poles, you can measure the distances between using your feet or strides. However, using a measuring tape is the best and safest way to measure distances. For most gymnastics, a 5m to 10m measuring tape will be enough. If you plan to build two-stride combinations and more complex exercises, a fiberglass 30m measuring tape is perfect.

Fiberglass measuring tapes have the benefit as they don’t rust like their metallic counterparts and copy the soil perfectly.

Before measuring the distance between two poles, make sure they are laid parallel to each other and perfectly aligned. With the poles on the floor, measure the distance from the center of one pole to the other. Then, measure the distance on each side. If the poles are perfectly aligned, the distance from the center shouldn’t vary.

Measuring poles of different lengths and aligning the poles require advanced techniques that are outside the scope of this article. Please leave a comment if you would like to learn more about advanced measuring techniques. For the exercises in this article, use a measuring tape and double-check if everything is aligned.

Building Your First Grid – Trotting Poles And A Jump

This exercise is the foundation of most show jumping gymnastics. Placing a pole before a jump helps green horses develop their distance, and helps more experienced horses improve it. Most trotting grids start with one or more trotting poles in front of a small fence.

Don’t move on to more complicated exercises until your horse doesn’t master this simple combination.

1. Place a trotting pole before a low (50 or 60 cm) cross-rail, leaving a distance between 1.80 and 2.70 meters. The distance between the pole and the cross-rails varies depending on your horse’s size and the length of their strides.
2. Focus on the approach, ensuring the horse is straight and has a good balance and rhythm (don’t confuse rhythm with speed). Keep your legs in contact with your horse, encouraging him to move and reassuring him that you are there.
3. As you approach the pole, don’t hesitate to change your seat, and focus on keeping your horse balanced. Stay as steady as you can and point to the center of the cross rail.

You may need to adjust the distance from the trotting pole to the cross-rail until you feel your horse is comfortable with the distance.

If everything goes okay, add an invitation pole 30 cm before the fence and change the cross-rail for a small vertical. Repeat steps 1 – 3 a few times.

Adding A Vertical

Once your horse has become familiar with jumping with a pole in the ground, you can add a vertical to your grid. Place 2 or 3 trotting poles, leaving 2.5m between the last pole and a cross-rail. Then, build a small vertical at 5.5 to 6 meters from the cross-rail.

This exercise aims to help horses develop their jumping mechanics, and it’s a great exercise to help horses build trust over the jumps. Between the cross-rail and the vertical, your horse should keep the pace without rushing over, and he will strengthen the hindquarters as he lands and prepares for the second jump.

What you can do:

1. Build the grid and measure all the distances accurately.
2. Focus on the approach as if you were heading to the previous exercise. Aim to the center of the vertical. Your goal as a rider is to enter the exercise at the center of the cross-rail and ensure you both jump over the center of the vertical.
3. Between jumps, recover a light seat and get ready to jump the vertical without rushing. Keep a steady pressure on your horse, but don’t over-push or press him. Allow him to jump freely.
4. When you are confident, give your horse more rein between jumps to help him jump freely.
5. For novice riders, the average height for these exercises is between 0.70 and 0.90 meters, and it’s recommended not to exceed 1.10 meters at this distance.

Adding An Oxer to Show Jumping Gymnastics

The next natural step in this progression is adding an oxer after the vertical. The oxer can be placed between 5.4 and 6 meters away from the vertical. For novice riders, the goal of this exercise is to be as steady as possible without interfering with the horse. For green horses, the goal of this gymnastics is to gain confidence. This progression, starting from the very first exercise and adding the following fences on the ground and up, will also help correct problems for more experienced horses with confidence problems. For experienced riders and horses, this exercise, especially when the oxer is set above 1m and wide, it helps horses develop their hindquarters and scope, requiring them to make an effort to clear the oxer. When riding powerful horses, it’s challenging for the rider to remain on the saddle as the horse’s thrust is phenomenal. Never use this setup without the supervision of a qualified trainer or instructor.

What you can do:

1. Build the grid and measure all the distances accurately.
2. Focus on the approach as if you were heading to the previous exercise. Aim to the center of the oxer. Your goal as a rider is to enter the exercise at the center of the cross-rail and ensure you both jump over the center of the last fence, in this case, the oxer.
3. Between jumps, recover a light seat and get ready to jump the vertical without rushing. Keep a steady pressure on your horse, but don’t over-push or press him. Allow him to jump freely and do everything you can in order to not interfere with your horse’s mouth.
4. When you are confident, give your horse more rein between jumps to help him jump freely.
5. For novice riders, the average height for these exercises is between 0.70 and 0.90 meters for the vertical and 1 x 0.80m for the oxer. Experienced riders can set two 0.80 or 0.90 verticals for the first jumps and a square 1.10m oxer at 6.50m from the second jump.

Remember not to repeat the exercise more than 10 or 12 times at the most, as each time you do this exercise, it is similar to jumping 3 obstacles.

Final Words

I hope you enjoy these first steps into show jumping gymnastics. In the following articles, we will introduce more items to the grid, like ‘in and outs’ and longer distances to fix and prepare you and your horse for the demanding show jumping courses. You can use your Pivo Pod Silver Equestrian Pack to record the progress and see what you and your horse do best and what should be improved. And, of course, you can use your videos to share them with your friends. Enjoy your jumps! 

Read more: Part 1 – Show Jumping Mechanics, Part 2 – Show Jumping Gymnastics