Island Life Magazine Ltd June/July 2011 | Page 100

EQUESTRIAN

Gymnastic
jumping

ROBERT BOOTH BHSI

EQUINE TRAINER

A typical grid

Gridwork or gymnastic jumping is
something nearly everybody involved
in jumping horses will use at sometime
in a horses training. A jumping grid
involves a line of fences at varying
distances that ask different questions
from the horse and is used to teach
the horse to use his body in an athletic
way over a jump, to think for himself
and to give him confidence.
How you build a grid will depend
on your horses experience, technique
and confidence. Usually I start with a
cross pole from trot with a pole on the
ground 2.7m in front. The pole acts
to make the horse take off from both
hindlegs midway between the pole and
the jump, the cross pole encourages
the horse to stay in the middle. When
he is jumping this confidently and
landing in a good canter I introduce
another fence 6.2m from the cross
allowing the horse to land, take one
canter stride and jump the second

fence. This fence can be either a cross
or a vertical. With a very green horse
I usually use a low vertical with a pole
on the floor below the top rail and
about 20cm in front, this acts as a
groundline to help the horse judge the
height. When confident at this another
fence is added 6.3m from the vertical,
again with a groundline. This can be
a vertical or an oxer (spread fence )
which will encourage the horse to give
a bigger jump and round or arch his
back in the correct way, this is called a
bascule. Often I will put a pole on the
ground in between each jump which
will be in the middle of the canter
stride to encourage the horse to lower
his head to look and to help keep the
canter stride even and in the middle
of the jumps, but beware some horses
over react to this so introduce this
carefully.
When the young horse is happy
jumping at least 3 small jumps in a

A bounce

row with one or two canter strides in
between then I introduce a bounce
where the horse lands then takes off
for the next jump with no canter stride
in between. Again start small with a
cross from trot with a placing pole
and the bounce about 3.5m away. This
teaches agility and power from the
back and hocks but be careful not to
over do this as it can cause strain.
Having mastered these exercises,
various grids can be used and all
distances are flexible and must be
adapted to the individual horse. As a
rule slightly shorter distances improve
power and shape of the jump and to
long can make the jump flat. Above
all the horse must remain confident
and do not hesitate to make things
easier if there is a problem, but done
well jumping grids will improve
confidence, agility and technique in
the horse.

Rodgebrook Horses
TEL: [phone] www.rodgebrookhorses.co.uk
100

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