Can horses be both fab SJers and fab XC horses?

Saratoga

Saratoga

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Can a horse be both careful and scopey over a SJ, giving them lots of height and jumping regular clear round, and have the heart, speed and ruthlessness sometimes needed to be awesome XC?

Some of the XC machines that you see tend to be less than careful in the SJ, and the really scopey horses in the SJ can sometimes be too careful out on the XC course.

Can a horse be both?
 
Yep, ElleJS's mare being one of them I reckon
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They can be few and far between, but they are out there... its getting that AND the dr which is the difficult thing...
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though look at Pippa's youngsters from the Billy stud... very very good Sjing and XC records... and do good dr!!
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Yes very possible, but as Kat said they are quite few and far between!
My horse was an example until we moved up to bigger stuff (think our best season was 15 ODE's, 1 stop xc and 2 poles down in total!!! However the dressage was diabolical
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No doubt the world has moved on but years ago there were horses that did serious show jumping as well as cross country. Coldstream jumps to mind and some others as well whose names I must admit to having forgotten.
 
Some can but there's not many of them

Friend's open TC horse team chases all winter and then show jumps successfully through the summer, and is hellish careful with it.
 
yup, mine will jump double clears regularly,only up to novice level but thatll he's been asked to do!
 
It is possible but unusual. Mine is an example she had 2 fences down at 8 events 2* level / Intermediate and was clear xc every time last season. Interesting the examples that spring to mind are predoninatly mares.
 
well we evented last year and bd and bsja, now just bd and bsja due to financial reasons. I have just had to spend 2 months shortning him up for bsja as he had got long for the xc and sj in eventing.
 
It's back in the 1960s but Merely-a-Monarch won Badminton and Burghley then went on to be a top-class SJer. And as mentioned above Coldstream, later known as Hydrophane Coldstream had his eventing career cut short by injury, but from jumping Grade C at the age of 11, went on to be absolutely 1st class for Derek Ricketts - a more careful jumper you could not hope to find. I have a sneaking suspicion that quite a few eventing horses would SJ better over slightly bigger courses than they do over those at the current limits - they'd probably give them more respect. And now that the short format predominates, they should not be so tired after dressage and cross-country that a higher course would be unkind.
 
yes, horses can, but often riders can't
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eg. Last season my horse was double clear at every event (part from 1 dozy rider error)

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I was also wondering this the other day, as I am seriously thinking that my mare wont be cut out for XC...

She's a really good SJ, and HATES to touch things (only 2 poles this season at PN and N due to my rubbish riding
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). Trouble is, when we go round the XC, she is almost too careful, and for instance, would never brush through a brush fence - we always end up jumping right over the top!!
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Any nappiness I have from her, is always in XC and never SJ - she absolutely loves SJ, and yet lacks in confidence round the XC.

A good friend of mine is a serious SJ, and is convinced that I will 'ruin' her by taking her XC. My dressage instructor also thinks that the XC has a detrimental effect on her flatwork.

Hmmm.... Having said that, my gelding is a fantastic bold XC horse, yet was flipping awful at SJ - he just didnt give the poles the respect they needed.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Yep, ElleJS's mare being one of them I reckon
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They can be few and far between, but they are out there... its getting that AND the dr which is the difficult thing...
wink.gif
though look at Pippa's youngsters from the Billy stud... very very good Sjing and XC records... and do good dr!!
shocked.gif
tongue.gif


[/ QUOTE ]

I wonder how much of this is due to the horse, and how much is due to the fact that she is just an awesome rider!!
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Probably a bit of both, but put it this way - If I was riding those Billy horses, I'm sure they'd have a few more jumping faults on their records
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Chatter1's advanced horse has pretty good dressage and is an incredibly careful Sjer. Gets very upset if he has a pole. He will often jump himself into trouble though as gets so high. He is also amazing xc and very straight.
 
yes, they can be. bravery and carefulness can go hand in hand. tbh i wouldn't want to ride a xc horse who clunked the fences all the time, even if it did stay upright!
fwiw my grey mare was like the one hammiehamlet describes, she used to clear brush fences (including the one before the water at Osberton 3-day which was an upright and abolutely enormous), and very very rarely touched a fence xc. when i did the 3* on her my friend/groom, who had groomed at lots of 4*s, couldn't believe that she came back from xc without a nick or a mark on her, she hadn't touched a fence, and that was normal. i can remember her hitting 2 or 3 xc fences in her entire career.
her sj record was good (she'd done her first Grade C clear the week I bought her) but she used to cramp behind in midair when she was tense and have them, more style than carelessness... this coupled with my inaccuracy didn't help sometimes! with a pro she'd have had a double clear record second to none i think!
Headley Brit is another mare who is very bold (now, she wasn't as a novice apparently) and also super careful.
and i can remember someone years ago who had an Advanced mare who used to sj in Clarendon boots all round, and was consistently clear.
iirc Vaughn Jeffries Bounce was Grade A (or maybe Grade B) and some of Blyth Taits were super double-clear machines too, and not at all bad at the dressage!
 
yup. mine was born to showjump, so he did, and because of that he is insane at XC. when i got him though he was preety cr@p, but with some schooling and hunting he jumps anything. will go to novice BE and would go further but the dressage will stop us! :P
so yes, and i think a lot of horses are!
 
That's good to know then!! I have a 6yr old that is very good over a SJ, bold and scopey, and i was wondering if he wouldn't make a good XC horse because of it.

I was also wondering if too much XC makes horses that were scopey/careful over a SJ less so the more experienced they get?
 
no, not necessarily, depends totally on the horse. some horses go back to pure sj at the end of their eventing career, for instance Vere's Coral Cove, who was very gung-ho xc but never became casual over sjs.
the only drawback i can think of with a super sj horse is if it is mega-scopey and over-uses its jump xc, especially on drops, into water, etc, because then they can scare themselves (not to mention requiring some seriously sticky jodhs), and also if they lose a second or two in the air over every jump, that can add up.
the bay 2nd right in my siggy was sj bred by Eugano, had a mega jump but also very spooky, and he nearly decapitated me at Holdenby PN by jumping the little ditch in the woods as if it was Devil's Dyke, i nearly hit my head on the branches above and heard all the spectators gasp... not fun. he nearly lost me out the back door at a N drop fence too, launching upwards and then hanging in the air looking to see where he could land!
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so, great careful jump is fine as long as they use it judiciously xc!!
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Yes - I've got one. Very careful and clean jumping round the SJ, but bold round the XC. Nice feeling both XC and SJ because he jumps cleanly but doesn't over jump. Happy to brush through hedges/brush fences. Very nippy and jumps well off a long one or a fiddly short one. Just an allround confident jumper with copybook technique. Plus brilliant dressage, which seems to improve with every SJ jump off and XC round. Think he was just born like that. Worth his weight in gold.

Oh, and he's a warmblood!
 
QR: Yes of course, but quite often the riders struggle with one or the other rather than the horse! Think of it this way - if the horse is going clear over XC tracks and not jumping by braille (i.e. tapping every fence) then clearly it is something in the riding and training over SJs which is the problem, not the ability of the horse. I count myself firmly in that category, as has been pointed out on here before my horse has a distinctly average record and TBH it's not his fault.
 
Yes and i feel truly priveledged to have had two, my mare Tina was very careful and also brave xc upto Intermediate was her limit and sj i would say 1.25 / 1.30, i just hope her son take after her!
Bud grey in siggie is good sj, we have always done bsja aswell as eventing so wanted horses that can do both. he was bred to sj but has taken to xc amazingly, he is the most honest and scopey horse i have ever ridden just shere brilliance with amatuer jockey me on board, sj only time we have poles is ususally rider error or over excited ud getting tense and not using himself, or if they are small he sometimes doesn't repsect them.
They are out there
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My old horse was extremely careful showjumping - as Geoff Billington said - he's more careful than a nudist jumping a barbed wire fence!

He was also good xc - he'd jump everything but was cautious and needed encouragement. He had the self preservation thing going on!

On the other hand, my thoroughbred was a machine xc, but not so careful sj as he flattened if he got too fast - probably my fault for letting him!
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