- Mar 31, 2010
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I hope you take the previous posters' advice. I'm currently preparing to have my capable and kind 19 year old thoroughbred down. He raced when he was young, and had the misfortune to have been really good at Steeplechasing. The stress of all that jumping caused him to develop some pretty awful arthritis at a much younger age than normal. Sadly, he was recently diagnosed with an additional problem, suspensory ligament degeneration. I simply could have retired him and let him live out his years in a nice pasture. But the arthritis on top of the ligament degeneration makes that impossible. He is pretty much crippled even with expensive bar shoes on the bad legs, and is going downhill fast. I have to wonder if he hadn't raced over fences if things would be different. It is such a waste of a calm, sensible, well-trained horse.
It has been a long time since I showed hunter/jumper, but IIRC, they are mainly judging the horse's way of going, and not the rider. The theory behind it is that it is impossible to "ride" every step of a 3 hour fox hunt. You generally are not asking for a lot of bend and flexation from the horse. Dressage is a whole different ball game. What you the rider are doing is judged as well. A young horse is not going to be great at it. The horse needs time to learn to bend his back and carry the rider, to strengthen his neck to achieve the proper head carriage, how to get his feet under him to propel himself forward, etc. Certain horses are not well-suited to higher level dressage. At the upper levels, they tend to be very large horses, and are usually European warmbloods or thoroughbreds. I think dressage is great for everybody, but look at it as an opportunity to grow and develop your young horse and yourself as a rider.
For jumping, my advice is: 1) it isn't about how high the fence is; 2) it isn't about how high the fence is; 3) it isn't about how high the fence is. Most horses like to jump naturally. But as someone pointed out, what they can do on their own is different than what they can do with the added complication of a rider. I currently ride a 4 year old horse who is exceptionally quiet for a horse that age. The trainer does lots of little cross rail gymnastics with her so she can practice figuring out where to take off, land, how to round out over the fence, all that good stuff. She probably has the potential to jump over 5 feet, but it isn't sensible to do that with her now. Also, I hope you are being safe and never jumping alone. I ride at a 3-day eventing barn. No one is allowed to jump without the trainer present. Even the trainer has someone with him when he jumps. A couple of nationally ranked eventers come over to use the arena. They usually come in a pair. If the one guy is alone, I've noticed that he checks to make sure I'm around before he starts jumping. He would need help if he had a crash, so he makes sure he isn't alone. Hope that helps.
It has been a long time since I showed hunter/jumper, but IIRC, they are mainly judging the horse's way of going, and not the rider. The theory behind it is that it is impossible to "ride" every step of a 3 hour fox hunt. You generally are not asking for a lot of bend and flexation from the horse. Dressage is a whole different ball game. What you the rider are doing is judged as well. A young horse is not going to be great at it. The horse needs time to learn to bend his back and carry the rider, to strengthen his neck to achieve the proper head carriage, how to get his feet under him to propel himself forward, etc. Certain horses are not well-suited to higher level dressage. At the upper levels, they tend to be very large horses, and are usually European warmbloods or thoroughbreds. I think dressage is great for everybody, but look at it as an opportunity to grow and develop your young horse and yourself as a rider.
For jumping, my advice is: 1) it isn't about how high the fence is; 2) it isn't about how high the fence is; 3) it isn't about how high the fence is. Most horses like to jump naturally. But as someone pointed out, what they can do on their own is different than what they can do with the added complication of a rider. I currently ride a 4 year old horse who is exceptionally quiet for a horse that age. The trainer does lots of little cross rail gymnastics with her so she can practice figuring out where to take off, land, how to round out over the fence, all that good stuff. She probably has the potential to jump over 5 feet, but it isn't sensible to do that with her now. Also, I hope you are being safe and never jumping alone. I ride at a 3-day eventing barn. No one is allowed to jump without the trainer present. Even the trainer has someone with him when he jumps. A couple of nationally ranked eventers come over to use the arena. They usually come in a pair. If the one guy is alone, I've noticed that he checks to make sure I'm around before he starts jumping. He would need help if he had a crash, so he makes sure he isn't alone. Hope that helps.
