Tips for a New Jumper - Part 1

I recently had a student ask me if I had any advice for someone who is just starting to learn to jump. Well in a typical Lauren fashion I thought of about 7 things at once to communicate right away. But instead I asked if there was something that she was most nervous or unsure about.

Her response was that learning the timing of the release without direct aid from the instructor seemed daunting. Ok, that makes sense. I couldn't narrow my thoughts down to just one tip, but over the next several posts I will go over my top four tips for new jumpers.

Aleina's first jumping lesson, me over-explaining (probably), Dragon being a good sport.
Photo courtesy of Katherine Oriez

#1 - Count Your Rhythm

Learning when to release ultimately just takes time and experience. It's about learning what it feels like as much as "knowing" when it's supposed to happen. This is where patient lesson ponies come in handy. They have plenty of forgiveness for the 10,000 times we get it wrong while learning (perhaps a slight exaggeration).

Despite being a 3-beat gait, the canter has a definite 1-2 feel to it as you ride. Even though there are three foot falls involved (outside hind, diagonal pair, and inside front), from the saddle you mostly feel the horse's weight rocking between his hind and front ends. I've never actually researched the subject so that's just my impression of why 3 beats feels 1-2, take it with a grain of salt.

But find that 1-2 beat. Count out loud and ask your instructor or a friend if what you're counting matches the rhythm of your horse. For some riders this will come easy, but for others it can be difficult to "get" the rhythm.

As you get the rhythm down you can count in your head, use numbers, or substitute other words you might need to hear, like "sit-back" or "heels-down". Now that you've synced up with the canter rhythm we can use the count to get a better idea for when the jump is coming.

In our first few jumping lessons sometimes the timing for the release can seem like a guessing game. We know that we are moving towards a jump and at some unspecified moment between now and the other side there will be a jump and a release. Rather than trying to pick the right moment out of this otherwise unmeasured space of time, now you have the count to help you.

The 1-2 of your count signify your horse's feet hitting the ground. The jump, and your release, will pretty much always happen on one of these two beats, so you can rule out all the times in between.  This may seem like a simple concept but trust me it helps.

If you practice counting your rhythm on a regular basis pretty soon you might start to feel small changes to the rhythm. It can help you to feel if your horse is speeding up or slowing down to a jump.

As you get more experienced at jumping this count can help you determine what distance your horse is likely to get. Soon enough you will learn to feel the horse rising up under you for a jump. But for starting out, just practice counting that rhythm, a simple tool to add some benchmarks into the space before the jump.