How much jumping is too much?

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Stenners

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How often do you jump your horses?

I've always been under the thought of not jumping any more than once a week (very occasionally twice if I compete or had a lesson for example in the same week).

My mare can go a month or more without jumping for various reasons but lately we are jumping about once a week and the consistency does seem to really help as we are really finding our feet now and have just started out XC and have done a Hunter Trial the last 2 weekends and another this weekend. I wouldn't normally be out every weekend jumping but Hunter Trials are so short lived (about 2 months a year!) so i thought I'd make the most of them but then think to myself "am i doing too much"? she's ridden about 4 times a week and seems to absolutely love it.

I have a friends whos always been out most weekends both days usually doing 2 round of showjumping per day and then often a jumping lesson in the week! That to me seems a lot!

Am i worrying over nothing?

i would never run her on rock hard ground or deep boggy wet ground but the ground at the moment is pretty good.
 
I agree with you, I generally try not to jump more than once a week (and often that will just be a gymnastic exercise, not bug jumps). I believe that every jump adds wear and tear, but there does need to be a balance between the horse being conditioned for the work it's doing and the rider's eye staying 'in'
 
It's a tricky balance, I find for confidence I am better jumping quite often. After 2 weeks the jumps look bigger (and I'm only talking of jumps of about 1m!). I tend to think that small jumps often will build muscle and therefore support joints etc, so I don't jump bigger more than once per week.
 
Abacus said:
It's a tricky balance, I find for confidence I am better jumping quite often. After 2 weeks the jumps look bigger (and I'm only talking of jumps of about 1m!). I tend to think that small jumps often will build muscle and therefore support joints etc, so I don't jump bigger more than once per week.
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We are currenly only out jumping 70s so nothing too extravagent!
 
I'm wondering about this too. I have a young-ish horse who I'm bringing on in my own very amateur fashion. Trying to do a bit of everything with him but he likes XC and as you say the hunter trial season is short. Over the coming couple of months the training and competing opportunities seem to be more stacked towards jumping / XC and like you I'm worried about overdoing it. Next week there's a chance I could end up jumping him three times which does seem to be a lot.

I suppose the only things I think are that like you I'm only jumping about 70cm at the moment so I guess that's not too strenuous on them and at other times of year I'd do a lot less. So maybe if we're just doing it a bit more often for the next month or so it shouldn't be that harmful overall? Maybe it's just about getting a bit of balance to not to do much of any one thing over the long term rather than worrying about what's happening for a few weeks.
 
I think it's better for the horse to jump regularly than once per month. It's a bit like us, if you only run once a month you're going to struggle and probably feel crap for a few days after! If you do it regularly, you get fit, conditioned and find it easier.
 
TheMule said:
I agree with you, I generally try not to jump more than once a week (and often that will just be a gymnastic exercise, not bug jumps). I believe that every jump adds wear and tear, but there does need to be a balance between the horse being conditioned for the work it's doing and the rider's eye staying 'in'
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I think my brain must be off this afternoon I saw ‘bug jumps’ and wondered if this was some new training exercise 🤣
 
I don't strictly limit it to once a week, but I would aim for 4-5 times a month. So it might be an SJ lesson on a weds, then a farm ride on the sat, then nothing the week after. Also it honestly depends what level of jumping you are doing in comparison to your horses' ability. A fit event horse popping a few small grids doesn't put the same strain on the joints as a horse doing 2x rounds of SJ at the top of its capability.
 
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