VideoQ: Can you offer advice on how I can get used to the faster pace needed in jump-offs? And how can I encourage my horse to add speed without getting too flat and risking a rail?
~ Sarah W., Wisconsin
A: At the end of the day, you don’t have to tear around the jump-off at Mach 3 to be competitive. You just need to ride the best track available while slightly increasing your horse’s pace. If other people in the jump-off are faster than you, it just means their track and pace were a little better.
Sometimes speed can be deceiving. For example, if it’s a windy day, and you’re cantering around a course with the wind whipping in your ears, you might feel like you’re going much faster than you are. Other times, the winning rider’s round might not have looked as fast as others.
Top German show jumper Marcus Ehning often has a really fast time in the jump-offs, but it doesn’t look fast because his track and pace are so organized. If you watch some of his jump-off rounds and compare him to the leading rider halfway through the course, you’d never think he could catch that top rider who flew around the jump-off. But Marcus ends up a few seconds faster.
When you compare the footprints of the wild horse who raced around the jump-off to Marcus’ horse, you can clearly see his turns were 3 or 4 meters more on the inside track. The point is: You don’t need to be chaotic to be competitive or even win.
Success in show jumping always comes down to finding the best pace and track for you and your horse. Personally, I try to take the fewest strides in a jump-off and amplify that by going at a faster pace.
Extend Your Horse’s Stride in Small Increments
To work on increasing your horse’s pace for jump-offs, start by just minimally extending his stride, so he covers more ground at a slightly faster pace. By slowly and incrementally increasing your horse’s stride—and not going from zero to 100—you’ll start to retrain your brain to feel OK going faster for jump-offs.
To practice this, I like to set up a line of two ground poles on an average five-stride distance of 22 meters (about 72 feet). After I have my riders canter through it at an average pace, I’ll increase the distance between the poles to 23 meters, so on the next pass, the rider has to slightly extend the horse’s stride to make the five strides work.
Then, I’ll increase the distance to 24 and 25 meters to challenge the rider to further extend the stride to achieve the five strides. As I increase the distance between the poles, the rider needs to come in with a little more pace over the first pole and continue on a longer stride to still make the five work.
From there, it’s really about repetition and getting used to that more open stride and realizing how much you need to lengthen it to make the five strides work. With any skill you’re trying to acquire, the more you practice it, the better you get at it and the more natural it will feel.
Practicing your inside turns is also a good tool to have for jump-offs, as well as any exercise that forces you to focus on what I call track awareness. One of my other go-to exercises to help riders become more mindful of their track involves setting two ground poles on a curved line. (Imagine a 20-meter circle. Then, put one pole at 12 o’clock and the other at 3 o’clock.) If you ride the outside track, you should get seven strides; if you ride the inside track, you should get four strides.
So, I might have riders first do seven strides on the outside track, then four on the inside track, then five on the middle track, back to the four, to the five and back to the seven. This will help you always know which track you’re on.
Plan Your Pace and Track Based Off Your Course Walk
Your mental preparation for the jump-off is also important, and it starts with your course walk. As you walk the course, you need to consider how you’ll ride it in your first round and how you’ll ride it in the jump-off.
For the jump-off, think about where you might make an inside turn to shave some time off the clock or where you might be better off taking the outside track. For me, it often depends on the angles that I’m approaching and departing from over a jump.
I usually walk both the inside and outside options and the tracks that those options will put me on. For example, going to the inside might put you on the outside track two or three strides coming into the next jump because it pushes you out versus if you go around and then find the inside track to do two or three fewer strides.
Then it just comes down to basic mathematics. Make the decision based on what makes sense. Let’s say, for instance, there’s an eight-stride line, and you’ve watched others in the jump-off do the line in seven strides because they took the outside track and came into the line with momentum. If you take the inside track and slow down to the first fence, you’re not going to be able to make the seven. But, by going to the inside, I left out three strides, so I’m already one stride ahead of the riders who went outside and left one stride out on the line.
When you watch top riders in jump-offs, you’ll see a difference in their stride length as they approach the single fences versus the combinations. They open up the stride on the long stretches to single jumps, and then they settle a few strides before the combination. And once they land from the combination, they open it back up as they head to the next single fences.
The distance in the combinations doesn’t change from the first round to the jump-off, so you need to approach them off the same pace as your first round. If you come flying in, you’re going to get a bounce on a one-stride or make a real mess of whatever the combination might be.
The Role of Balance When Adding Speed
Anytime a horse travels faster, more weight is loaded onto his front end, which you don’t want on a takeoff spot for a jump. So, the faster you go, the more balanced you have to be as a rider. To help with this, I teach my students to lean away from their takeoff spot, especially when going at a faster pace for jump-offs.
The more you can sit back toward your horse’s hind end and stay away from his shoulders, and the taller you can keep your body, the more you can use your balance to counteract that extra weight on the front end. This will make your horse’s job easier when traveling at faster speeds.
Without your added weight, he’ll have the freedom to rock back and sit on his hind end so he can lift his withers and shoulders toward you rather than you leaning forward to meet the horse.
I hope these tips help you become more confident adding speed in your future jump-offs!
For More:
- Do you have a training question? Team Prac—our group of top trainers representing hunters, jumpers, eventing and dressage—is here to provide useful and impactful advice to help you improve in your particular discipline and develop a more harmonious partnership with your horse. Learn how to submit your questions to our Team Prac members here.
- Read more articles with Ronny Riemer on Practical Horseman here.
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About Team Prac Member Ronny Riemer
German grand prix show jumper Ronny Riemer has competed successfully at the FEI and national levels. He trained with German Olympians Franke Sloothaak and Paul Schockemöhle and made a name for himself as a rider and trainer throughout Europe and North America. Ronny and his wife Chanel have a sales and training business, RCR Equestrian, based at Diasti Stables in Ocala, Florida.
Click here to read Ronny’s full Team Prac bio that includes his career highlights, favorite horses and fun facts about the show jumper and lifelong horseman.