How much jumping is too much jumping?

[equestriansports]

I know people say you shouldn't do much jumping with a young horse but exactly how much is too much jumping? How often do you jump your horse - regardless of age?

 

[be positive]

I know people say you shouldn't do much jumping with a young horse but exactly how much is too much jumping? How often do you jump your horse - regardless of age?

I think each horse is different, my view is jumping for the sake of it is too much jumping, I have jumped some youngsters every day for a week to get them going, then given a break once they have started to show they are understanding and becoming confident but they may only pop a few fences in a session, jumping properly over 6-8 fences each day is less harmful than doing an extensive session and achieving very little.
I would rarely jump more than once a week with established horses, sometimes less sometimes more but it is the quality of each session that counts, again if they do the exercises well they may stop having hardly jumped anything but doing it so well there is little to be gained by continuing.
I normally have a plan of what I want them to do, what needs working on and try and stick to that plan not that it always works sometimes you need to be flexible depending on how the horse is going that day.

 

[Sugar_and_Spice]

Interesting question. These days I only ride "for the sake of it" so I also jump for that reason alone. I've found with an unfit (for jumping) horse they're tired after about 10 jumps so if I haven't jumped for months 10 will be my maximum in one session, but only if I felt something needed a bit of practice so if I did 6 or 8 really good jumps I'd stop there instead of making the horse tired. When I used to compete I only ever did a couple of practice jumps just to let the horse know why we were there. I've taken fit horses on upto 20mile fun rides with 15-20 jumps and treated it more as a cross country session with a few breaks, rather than a long slow hack. To get a horse that fit I'd be jump schooling, jumping about 15 fences 3x per week in the arena as well as one or two long fast hacks where I might jump the odd jumpable-looking thing too. I can't imagine wanting to jump more than once per week now. People who jump every day, not even schooling just going round and round over jumps for an hour with little warm up/ cool down, those I think are jumping too much. With a young horse I'd be inclined to jump minimum 3x per week but probably only 3 or 4 fences max in a session but ideally just 1 or 2. I'd try to set it up so nothing went badly wrong and there was no need to practice something too much just to end on a good note.

 

[Equi]

I loose jump my wee ones every time I exercise in the ring but I'm talking a small cross pole and I do it three times each way. It's maybe three times a week.

 

[paddi22]

i jump twice a week max. and one the sessions is usually polework and the other a grid session

 

[Sparkles]

Think it depends solely on horse in question - type, fitness, age, conformation etc

For mine, we have one 'proper' jumping session a week. Proper being multiple varying jumps, gridwork, having goals for techniques improvement that session. Or, if I'm going out xc schooling or jumping at a show that week - that outing counts as my jumping session.

However, the rest is spent hacking mostly. I may pop one or two jumps out then, but no more and more a case if we find anything by chance.

 

[lakesidedreamer]

I have an ex racer, and we do grid work no more than twice a week. We do pole work, then start to integrate small (60cm) jumping work which helps with his rhythm and balance, without his tiny pea-brain losing interest.

We tend to do 2 days flat work (over trotting poles/lateral work etc) and 1 or 2 poles-gridwork session, and usually a hack. sometimes he will get a lunging day too during the winter, but rarely in the summer. I nearly always jump him on the lunge, over 2 small fences per circle - again, helps with his interest, attention and balance.