How big do you jump at home and what level do you compete at?

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Navalgem

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Just curious as a girl I know insists on reg jumping 1.30 when she competes at BN level? Personally I prefer to work on the flat or gridwork, up to 90 cms, I compete BN and Disc. Mainly because I feel that the approach and landing, having a responsive horse which shortens, lengthens and bends correctly are the most important bits, the jump (once I've got there - hopefully correctly) is the horses business. Don't get me wrong - I do confess to having jumped a couple of big fences at home but it is certainly not a regular occurance, up to today the biggest I've jumped at home is 1.05, but as my horse was getting rather complacent and lazy, he's done some bounce work and then two x bounces and 1 stride to a 1.20 fence. I haven't jumped that big a fence on its own.
 
When I am competing regularly (which is at Foxhunter level so 1.20/1.30 jumpoff) i have a lesson once a week and we usually end up jumping a 1.35/1.40 course a couple of times. I never jump a course at home smaller than 1.10 unless of course we are having a problem.

If we want to work on very tight jumpoff turns though we tend t stick at 1.10/1.20 to get him confident :)

I always train over 10cms bigger than i am competing as then neither horse nor rider will feel unprepared in the ring and also if a place builds big it shouldn't cause a problem.
 
I always try to feel confident jumping 5-10cm bigger at home than I am competing over, although I would tend to build up to that level during a session, not jump at that size all the time. I would also often jump smaller if I was working on skinnies, angles or 'flatwork' issues like approach, turns etc. Likewise I might occasionally jump something 'big' on a set 2 or 3 stride distance to get my eye in before a competition or before a days hunting where I think there will be big hedges.
 
depends on the horse...

Monty for example (aged 20) i used to never jump him at home, as he knew his job and was better for it just going out bsja at the weekend.
Dani and Bugsy however i do jump at home... as a general rule i tend to jump 5-10cms bigger than the level i compete at (Discovery)... but tend to keep the fences at 90cms-1m max. if i'm practising turns or approaches etc.

but i agree. i think flatwork is more important to work on regularly, as showjumping is pretty much flatwork with some obstacles in the way. lol! and as tim stockdale says 'the jump is just an exaggerated stride'... x
 
Well I thought i was jumping 1.05/1.10m ish, but we have measure what we have been jumping and have now realised that the cups are 10cms so we have actually been jumping 1.15/1.20m! lool. We compete at 1.05m/1.10m and open PC (1.10/1.15m) :D
We only jump once a week and that is normally working on a specific thing rather than just jumping a few fences eg. dog legs etc. :)
Flat work is worked on far more often...especially our canter!
 
Like to be jumping 10cms higher at home than comp courses. I don't ever jump anything less than 1m as it is pointless on a big horse. As G_E says above, we did find out on Friday that we had been jumping 10 cms bigger than we thought, which was rather nice!

I also never jump many fences, probably around 20 jumps in total and that is it, with canter schooling in between, and only jump once a week at home.
 
I'm a bit different- I jump smaller at home than at comps. I only jump grids at home now, as just jumping big jumps is pointless, so work more on technical stuff than height- the last element of a grid will be about 1.10m I guess, but do things like "V"s on jumps and big X poles to get her jumping bigger. Also don't jump big at home as don't have a menage so don't want to jump big on hard ground when I don't need to. I compete at BE novice level/NCs, so 1.10m/1.15m. Doesn't do her any harm, I never feel overfaced when I turn up at shows- she knows what shes doing, so I guess it may be different with a different horse.
 
Good point BQ. Once I have a horse jumping 1.20m then I seldom jump that big at home. I would say 99% of my schooling is done around the 1.10m level - then if you cock up it isn't such a big deal either ;)
 
millie is competing at 90cm (BE90) and schools over around 1m at home.

we jump once a week and mainly jump around a course as we are working on her rideability between the fences.

spend a lot of time working on the flat on her canter in the manege though.

Pilfer was competing at around 1.15/1.20m and i used to jump him around 1.05/1.10m at home working on things like the turns, pulling the back rails out on spreads etc.
 
i like to be jumping a bit bigger than i would at the competition but nothing massively bigger (and its really only so i don't **** myself when i get there :rolleyes:) so i prob jump around 1metre at home if jumping BN at comps. when i have lessons its a mixture of working on things like turn backs or related distances etc and so jumps might start off smaller but normally finish over a course which is a bit bigger. don't see the point in jumping massively bigger than you would at a comp- i think if anything it can make the horse less careful when its a lot smaller...
a girl i know always jumps top of the wings at home- so about 1.25 or 1.30 (and leaves the cups there to show off ;) ) but her horse (which btw is lovely and very talented) rarely jumps clear in the sjing which is around 1.10....
 
I WAS jumping smaller at home on my youngster, and not jumping my older girlie much at home as she knows her job now, as it's been unaff 80cm and 90cm classes up 'till now. However, this has led to me getting into bad habits because when you jump 80cm you can get away with errors that will cause chaos at 1m10!

So, for the next few weeks until our first BS show, I'm forbidding myself anything smaller than 90cm incl full up oxers to start with, then straight up to 1m/1m05+, as this height shows up my failings more, and makes me ride better.
 
completley depends on the horse for me.

my good horse knows the deal so if she is out of fitness or i am rusty then i will jump her or if theres a specific problem i want to address then i will, but usually only the last couple jumps will be up to height (she does 130s &140s) as i know she can do it and she always does it well, so theres no point in hammering home the issue. and she jumps better fresh so we dont do much at home at all. The only thing is do with her regularly is really wide oxers, not high, as thats her weakness.

the youngsters i dont mind what height really, usually what they will jump in the ring, so 1m and 120 at the moment. for me its not the height its the attitude and groundwork so i prefer to work on that im not bothered if they dont jump between shows as the jumps are the easy bit at that height!
but they are smart genuine horses so its a bit different to when you have a dumber one that needs alot of prep i think! like when i have a 4 faulter they always jump at least 10cm higher at home.

once i find a 'formula' for a horses homework that makes it jump clear i dont change it, whether it means never jumping at home, jumping bigger/smaller whatever, very much horses for courses.
 
Left to my own devices, I will tootle round 1m at home, working on rhythm and balance. Then if (when) I mess up, she can still cope and I don't want to hammer her over big fences. I jump PN/Disco and am in the process of moving up to Newcomers and (hopefully!) Novice. However, my trainer pushes me in lessons and has me doing 1.20m. When I said I wanted to move up, he said I had to be happy to jump 1.20 (with big spreads!). I think it has been good for me, as when I walk a course, the jumps look smaller than the ones I do at home. That gives me confidence, which is something I lack! So I won't say it improves my jumping, but it does make me ride with more conviction.
 
I am competing BE 100 and the odd 1m 10 and jump about 85cm at home, though I jump bigger at PC rallies and in lessons (just jump what I'm told!) but it depends on the horse. My other horse is not the most confident and finds jumping much more difficult than the pony so even when I'm only doing BE 90 I like to jump a good 1m 05 at home :). I rarely jump the first pony at home at all as she is more than comfortable at the level we are at and I'm not pushing to move up a level atm.
 
I don't really compete (odd 2'6 unaffiliated thing, hoping to go to 2'9 soon) but try to mostly school over things that are that height or slightly larger... why? Because my horse is a lazy sod who likes to think 'well, we always jump this height, so the jump must be that height' even when we're going towards something that's actually 3'.... :o Figure if he jumps things a bit bigger, it's less of a disaster.
 
Totally depends on the horse. The horse i have now jumps regularly round 1.20/1.25 at home, but is only doing BE Novice (1.10/1.15)/BS Newc (1.10) at the moment. He is young and brave (cocky!) so needs the fences to be decent at home to listen and learn, but he's still green so needs to jump something at a show that won't land him in trouble and knock his confidence should it go wrong.

My previous event mare had to jump smaller at home, as she just didn't settle and would lose her confidence if we over jumped her. We rarely jumped bigger than 1.10 at home but she was outing competing BE Intermediate (1.20) / BS Fox (1.20).
 
See, I'm one who tends to jump either smaller or same size at home as the horse is competing, working on the technical stuff - on the basis if you can do it right over 1m at home, say, you can do it over the same sort of size at a show. This is when I'm competing young horses well within my own comfort zone - I don't think that from the horse's perspective you need to be jumping any bigger at home as they don't get fazed by the size of the fences at a show.

However, it's different when I'm competing over bigger fences which are starting to get to the height where I start to feel less comfortable - let's say Intermediate (1.20-1.25m) plus. In this case, if I've been schooling over 1.10-1.15, I get to the show/event and the track looks enormous so I panic and ride badly. To prevent this, if I know I've got to compete over (in my book) big fences, I will consciously make an effort to finish every schooling session in the run-up over some bigger fences (1.30ish). That way, when I get to the competition I'm not overwhelmed and ride properly :D
 
henry has jumped 1.05m as part of a grid (and single fences) looked at them and though eek! however, out competing he is doing 3ft (when we get back to jumping anyway).

Just gettign used to Trigger at the minute, and although he has more scope than Henry, sticking to small (3ft) stuff so I dont cock it up.

When out eventing they will both do intro
 
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