Jumping ideas for a dressage horse?

Barbara F · Grand Prix

Jumping ideas for a dressage horse?

justice · Grand Prix

Two little oxers (h/w of your choice) on a figure eight. Fun, easy, rhythmic, need to be round to catch the rhythm. Incorporate other jumps when and where as desired. Keeping it simple keeps it non-scary for Rider, fun and confidence-building for Pone.

Once you have established elastic gates between fences, 4 cavaletti at 6-8 foot spaces can be a fun little gymnastic : )

Barbara F · Grand Prix

Those sound like great ideas, Justice. I think perhaps I should start with a couple of cavaletti and then move to the oxers? What do you think?

justice · Grand Prix

Use your cavaletti as a warm-up: ) Keep the oxers under two foot, if you like, and no wider than two foot and you should be ok to start. Granted, I am not there to witness your skill/comfort level so please adjust this as necessary to allow yourself peace and confidence : ). Not a bad idea to have a set of ground eyes with you, they can double as jump crew, haha : ) It's the rhythm that makes the ride/jump. This exercise is for rhythm so the jumps themselves do not have to be high at all. OR wide.

An oxer is easier for a horse to jump, can offer a nice stretch exercise and it doesn't have to be high and wide to serve a purpose (tho slightly wider will encourage more impulsion from behind). Just keep your back bar visible from the front. Square oxers can be deceiving to the horse as well as rider when first starting out in oxerville.

Keep it low, let it flow : )

Kairen Jamieson · Yearling

There is a great book you can get at almost anytack shop called "101 Jumping Exersices" that you may find very useful...it has a great selection of schooling suggestions that would suit this purpose with very good explainations of how to.

hedgren · Yearling

Dr. Klimke's "Cavelletti" book is excellent and really provides a lot of gymnastics for dressage horses! I think it is out of print but you may be able to find it.

Ingrid Klimke has a book called Cavaletti: The Schooling of Horse and Rider over Ground Poles - I don't know if there are any jumping exercises in it. From what I read it is revised.

There is a good link here about dressage/jumping

http://www.horse-canada.com/articles/HSthecavalettisystem03.02.htm

MagsNMe · Advanced

For those without sufficient jumping skills, or a horse that doesn't know how to jump, a nice free jump grid is an easy way of incorporating jumping. Just remember to set decent distances!

My favourite is a ground pole to a one to a two. Indoors you'll set a pole, 9' to an x-rail, 18 feet to an x-rail (convert to vertical as your horse becomes comfortable), 30' to another x-rail (convert to an oxer). Adjust as required.

The safest way to create is to run caution tape between the fences, in two runs, along the top of the standards, then a couple feet below, should keep horses from running out of the chute, but if they do make a break for it, it will NOT hurt them, which is very important. You can get it at any hardware store (think of police tape, but it says caution on it)

Start walking them through with poles on the ground, then trot them through, then put up the x-rails, starting at the back one, etc. My mare is well seasoned in the grid, and loves it. She gets to jump without interference and stretch her back, plus have some serious fun (she bucks at the end...)

UnbridledRider · Yearling

Keeping it simple is great advice, but make sure to warm up with simple but fundamental exercises such as trot poles, cantering over ground poles, and lunging the horse over a pole or short jump (such as a tall log) on the ground to cue the horse when to jump. New apps are going to be available for simple Hunter/Equitation/Jumper exercises soon for you to try out, and I will keep you posted! I'd like to hear how it goes with your dressage horse and jumping, I'm sure you'll both enjoy mixing up the routine :)