how do you know how big a horse can jump?

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Kelpie

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ok, today's daft question ;)

how do you know what your horse's max scope for jumping is? Do you just not know where the line is until you cross it, so to speak?

Also, what factors influence how big a horse can jump? I'm not sure it's just the horse's size as you see little ponies doing some proportiontely huge jumps! So what else? Can you train a horse to jump higher or is the max height based only on natural ability?

Any thoughts welcome! :)
 
My uncle, who is a VERY good SJer (WEG) says you never EVER try to find out what a horse's max scope is.
Factors are confo, but more importantly temperament/attitude. UncleSr's best horse was 15.2 and a criollo x tb who was bred to play polo. UncleSr said he was so good because he had absolutely no idea that he couldn't do it. His name was Casual and he won everything from speed classes to puissance. 2 other top riders in Argentina also said he was the best horse they'd ever ridden.
With correct training you can certainly maximise a horse's ability, but how can you know what the natural ability is? They will only jump as high as they want to jump, not as high as they are able to jump.
 
As above, a very good horseman once said to me, "The only way you can find out how high a horse CAN jump is to find out how high he CAN'T jump, which is not something you ever want him to know." Puissance horses are a bit of a different breed but he felt strongly that you should never TRY to break a horse's heart by asking questions it isn't prepared to answer.

As far as can you "make" a horse jump higher, I'd say no, not really. You can't make it jump better than its conformation and innate ability allows BUT the vast majority of horses are nowhere near their ultimate capacity for all sorts of reasons, so there is a lot of play. If you watch some of the European approvals/free jumping/auctions there is horse after horse after horse jumping HUGE jumps. Yes, they don't have riders on and yes, they're only jumping a few jumps under very managed conditions, but it shows you what they are theoretically capable of and how common that ability is. Many of the horses I've seen "improved" have actually been working far below capacity for whatever reason, so what they're really doing is moving a step closer to their optimum. Of course you make a horse stronger, more supple and more ridable with good schooling, which makes the job easier for them and lessens the negative factors in play.

As far as how can you tell how high a horse can jump without actually asking the question . . .well, you can't, really. But you can feel how hard or easy it is for the horse to jump what it is jumping, you can see the quality of the canter etc. so you can get a good idea. And a lot can be deduced from conformation, although again, this depends on the horse doing the best with what its got!
 
i agree with the above :) most horses can jump a lot bigger than we "think" most are capable of jumping out of their fields or stables (at least i have known a surprising number who have been able to! the mare im riding atm will jump out of her feild if her friends leave.. at least 1m40 and she is only 14.3
 
Nothing to add really but it makes me laugh when someone puts loads of photos on an ad of the horse loose-jumping (eg) 1m40 when actually once you put a rider on it will only jump 1m. It makes no sense to me
 
as above, and never be fooled by how big and with what style they'll loose jump, i know 1 very good rider who paid a lot of money for a horse who threw a spectacular loose jump, and never showed it under saddle, was very average.
i agree that you NEVER push them to the utmost, but i have tested a bit at home before stepping up a level, e.g. my little homebred (who looked like a very average riding clubber, not an athlete) had to do an upright to a square parallel (on a perfect distance) at about 1.30 at home a few times, cleanly and without real effort, before i took her to a 2* CCI. I needed to know she had the scope to jump advanced fences xc, and didn't want to find out the hard way at something solid.
It's weird though, because some horses grunt when trying hard, some just 'step a fence' however big or small it is, some you can really feel them try over bigger stuff, some feel great at any size fence... but, you get a feel for whether they are confident to a decent sized fence, and that's imho the most important thing, if they think they can, they can.
 
I think it's a case of how high the horse wants to jump :)

I've met two horses in my life who were bought to be showjumpers, but couldn't/wouldn't jump high enough to compete.

They both ended up as RS horses (two separate RSs), and oddly enough [despite my being a total wuss] I managed to get both of them to jump about 3ft [on lessons] without batting an eyelid, much to everyone's astonishment. Maybe it was because I rode at the jumps with a defeatist attitude?
 
Thanx all

Had an interesting chat with someone about this today .... basically if the horse has to dig too deep for you too often, that should be the hint that you are on the edge so go no further. Made good sense to me.....
 
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