Q? Why do so many eventers struggle in the SJ ring

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digger2

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Just a very general question due to a quiet afternoon at work - I'm not horse shopping at the mo, but generally browsing as you do :o

My ideal horse would be competitive, able to help me out round the xc and capable of a clear in the sj ring.

Lots of other items on the wish list of course, but when (for research purposes you understand :D ) clicking onto a horses BE record sooooooo many do not seam to be able to produce a consistent double clear.

As I am window shopping the price is not a consideration so i was surprised how many horses had more sj faults than clears, often out of say 7-8 events in the season only one clear.

Is it me? :confused:

Sorry turned into an essay!! Vimto and flapjacks for the best reply. :)
 
Because, IMO, doing XC with solid un-knockable jumps makes them lose a bit of respect for SJs because, well, they just fall down :D

Also XC and SJing are ridden so differently, XC is so gung-ho whereas SJing is a bit more reserved, and IMO some eventers just struggle with that and just result in an unfortunate fence down :)
 
I think the thing is, that not many people are amazing at three things in one day, let alone their horse- accuracy and total obedience for dressage, scopey and careful jumping for SJ and good galloping and bravery XC... It is a lot to ask.

Also, getting training for all 3 is costly, and lets face it a stop XC is far more costly than a pole SJ!
 
Well, with the BIG disclaimer that I am no expert, I thought it was because the horses that are really brave in the x-country tend to go into the SJ arena and go 'Poles? Poles-schmoles - they fall down when you hit them! Not going to bother too much with them then!', while the horses that are really careful SJ-ing look at the solid x-country fences and have a breakdown at the very thought of brushing one, thus taking several years to complete a round:D

But I'm not an expert, will be interested to see what the actual people that know what they're talking about say:)
 
Can see much truth in all your comments, espec bravery/lack of respect from the horses point of view and that a xc fault is much more expensive.

ditto Spudlet I've not much eventing experience either hence the q :)
 
I think because many pay least attention to this phase tbh, they pick horses for xc ability first and foremost (probably the way it should be!), and thats what BEers enjoy the most otherwise they would be doing other disciplines. Because horses are chosen for their xc ability many of them will not be careful in the showjumping, no matter how much work you put in imho.

Then there are the eventers who's horse is perfectly capable but they attack the sj the same way they go about the xc - and get a cricket score as a result.

As a mainly BSer (off games at the minute) I couldn't continue BE if I was having poles at every event, for me I would just get too frustrated. Fine if people want to pay and not go clear, but for me it would be too much money spent knowing I would likely knock one. :o

I think also as many are TBs off the track, which again is great for xc, they imho tend to (but not always ;) ) have a more dangly approach to jumping
 
I just think a lot of eventers just can't see a showjumping stride to save their life! Hence why we event not do pure showjuming.
Just seems like a lot of us eventers just don't have the skill to showjump well...
 
i think it's one hell of a horse who can consistently produce double clears. the advantage with eventing is that one pole down doesn't ruin your day - you can still get well placed whereas with pure SJ that's it you're out with 4 faults. I've still been placed with a pole down (highest being 2nd) as had good enough dressage to make up for it.
 
yup, Im one with a brave, fast XC horse who can produce high 20/low 30's dressage but rarely goes clear SJ at BE. I can take him BS or unaff pure SJ and produce DC's/get placed/win classes but at BE theres always the odd pole. My theory is that at BE it means more to me, and as such Im prob more nervous/dont ride as well as when Im taking him pure SJ, thinking its all just for practice and doesnt really matter cos its 'not our thing'. XC im relatively relaxed because I tend to be enjoying myself and dressage Im quite calm about after spending months over the last few winters plugging away and doing BD/unaff every other weekend to the point it got boring ;) I just havent put that much work into the SJ yet though! The odd pole here and there have cost us dearly in the placings in the past but every event is an experience and horse doesnt have a huge number of runs under his belt so Im not overly concerned at this stage, although if we're in the same position in a years time Id start to worry!

Horse is ready to move up to Nov and its our SJ record thats held me back so far, so have a winter of BS planned so hopefully by spring I'll be so relaxed about coloured poles we can get on with it. :D
 
Thanks everyone, lots of similar comments.

Please don't think I was having a go at horse or rider just a wet afternoon's musings!! :)

The xc phase is of course more influential and also most fun:) and following Saz's comments if you do move up through the levels the courses are going to get more difficult where you need to be more acurate.

Supose having a sj background, a clear sj looks far easier than trying to shave 4 or even 8 marks off a dressage test.
 
Interesting. My event horse has poles SJ, my SJ trainer is convinced he could make it as a pure SJ. When I counter that with 'why do we have poles then? It must be me' he says that if he changed jobs he would be trained very differently, and we could make him very careful, but it wouldn't suit him in his current job.
 
My boy has the other problem, consistantly gets double clears, but pants at the dressage (well I call 35% pants - you can tell im of a DR yard:D) Thankfully the rider does a lot of SJ as well and she does ride and train the horse differently for each element. In her own words DR isnt her strong point (or the horses) although she is a lovely rider. I pay for lessons with my pure DR instructor and we're getting there!
 
agree with the type of horse being the main issue. i have in the past owned (and know lots of people who have currently) a very careful warmblood who sj'd to reasonable level. if he clipped a pole (v rare occurance) he would jump twice as high next time - it made him a very good Sj-er. however when i switched to eventing it was very hit and miss. he was also verrrry careful xc which made it difficult to make the times, he would overjump everything which made it all a bit :eek: and despite having Sj'd much higher, we gave up at novice BE as didnt feel he was enjoying it. he would also have a crisis of confidence if it went even slightly wrong resulting in lots of E's :(

current pone exactly the opposite - he is an XC machine :D will go off any stride, not spooky at fences, seems to read them quite quickly and not waste too much time 'looking'. he is however a consumate pole basher :o we worked on it last winter and went from rounds with upto 5 poles down to having a couple of clears this year, however a pole here and there doesnt worry me too much, the fact he loves jumping, tries his heart out for me and we always come back from XC with big grins on our faces is all that really matters :D:D:D
 
One of my theories is that quite often the riders do not walk the Sj course as thoroughly as they should and often not at all. From reading posts on here, it is often said, "I watched a couple go before me to see the route".
Now I don't profess to be an expert, but surely it is as important to walk the SJ to find the strides,lines, distances, state of the ground, sloping, level or whatever, as it is to walk your XC thoroughly?
(This seems to be at the lower levels more than the more advanced levels)
Anyway, just my thoughts.
 
saz5083 said:
yup, Im one with a brave, fast XC horse who can produce high 20/low 30's dressage but rarely goes clear SJ at BE. I can take him BS or unaff pure SJ and produce DC's/get placed/win classes but at BE theres always the odd pole. My theory is that at BE it means more to me, and as such Im prob more nervous/dont ride as well as when Im taking him pure SJ, thinking its all just for practice and doesnt really matter cos its 'not our thing'. XC im relatively relaxed because I tend to be enjoying myself and dressage Im quite calm about after spending months over the last few winters plugging away and doing BD/unaff every other weekend to the point it got boring ;) I just havent put that much work into the SJ yet though! The odd pole here and there have cost us dearly in the placings in the past but every event is an experience and horse doesnt have a huge number of runs under his belt so Im not overly concerned at this stage, although if we're in the same position in a years time Id start to worry!

Horse is ready to move up to Nov and its our SJ record thats held me back so far, so have a winter of BS planned so hopefully by spring I'll be so relaxed about coloured poles we can get on with it. :D
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With the exception of the "good dressage" bit :p ... I agree with Saz! I can go out to "just SJ" comps and pick up clear rounds all day long with Hopalong, yet last year we had a real case of "four fault-itis" for no real reason, no more than 4 faults per round, and all just random silly/unlucky poles (bar one very cheeky duck out by Ms H which took me completely by surprise!).

I definitely think that at a BE comp, I put more pressure on myself to go clear and so don't ride as well as I do at SJ-only comps? Very frustrating though! And possibly a little bit of both her and me knowing that the "fun" bit is just around the corner?! ;) Like others have said- if it was the dressage/SJ part we were interested in, we'd be doing BD/BSAJ! ;)
 
Don't think BE ODEs are well set up for course walking - there are a couple of walks scheduled in the course of the event, at the start of each height class and maybe halfway through, but if your dressage clashes with them, tough bananas. At 3 days there is a clear opportunity to walk the course, as it's on a different day!
 
I am rubbish at the sj phase it's me not my horse for cc I ride the fences their imposing so I have my leg on the approach and support the horse .

Sj is a different matter I have a weaker canter and no support from my leg which is supported by the pro puctures if sj where
My lower leg flies back! Cc it does not!

Obviously now I am aware of the problem I will do my best to rectify it but it has taken me years to notice.

Bet I'm not alone and if so many of these horses with a bad sj record with a better rider could go clear!
 
saz5083 said:
yup, Im one with a brave, fast XC horse who can produce high 20/low 30's dressage but rarely goes clear SJ at BE. I can take him BS or unaff pure SJ and produce DC's/get placed/win classes but at BE theres always the odd pole. My theory is that at BE it means more to me, and as such Im prob more nervous/dont ride as well as when Im taking him pure SJ, thinking its all just for practice and doesnt really matter cos its 'not our thing'. XC im relatively relaxed because I tend to be enjoying myself and dressage Im quite calm about after spending months over the last few winters plugging away and doing BD/unaff every other weekend to the point it got boring ;) I just havent put that much work into the SJ yet though! The odd pole here and there have cost us dearly in the placings in the past but every event is an experience and horse doesnt have a huge number of runs under his belt so Im not overly concerned at this stage, although if we're in the same position in a years time Id start to worry!

Horse is ready to move up to Nov and its our SJ record thats held me back so far, so have a winter of BS planned so hopefully by spring I'll be so relaxed about coloured poles we can get on with it. :D
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Ditto this excatly!!
I can go to a BS show and go DC but for some reason SJ at an event stresses me completely - I think it is the terror if we get E we don't go XC. As such I ride like a complete numpty in the SJ phase most the time :o I have a careful horse but forget to use my legs at all at times and as such will have a stop whereas I don't think we have had a stop BS more than once ever. It doesn't help either we had a fall on grass BE SJ so on a surface my horse is a lot more confident on grass so he is quite different to ride at an event.
 
I think the main issue you miss is that BS does not list every single little fault it only lists success so actually there could be millions of rubbish show jumpers out there but you would never know until they get a DC or get placed.

I do not think eventers are that rubbish at showjumping. The problem is at BE you get one round with no warm up class and if you have a reasonable dressage the pressure is on.

At BS you have a fence down so you do the next class or go out the next week. Plus at £16 for a class not quite the same financial pressure!!
 
I think the "chicken vs lion" thing is a big part of it, both in terms of the horse's innate inclination and the way in which it's developed. Super careful horses tend to worry if they have a dicey moment but an event horse has to be a sturdier than that. ;)

Re the rider, though, I think event riders have traditionally divided riding into "dressage" and "jumping", lumping sj and xc together and assuming any and all dressage work will benefit jumping. Some of the problem is hours in the day. You can only spend so much time on each phase, especially if you have to work in fitness training too. Jack of all trades, and all that. Also, the phases have competing demands - I once had a conversation with a dressage coach where he told me I needed to stop galloping my event horse in order to improve his dressage :cool: :D

I do think it is changing though. At the top end riders differentiate between the two jumping phases now and don't expect one to prepare horses for the other. Plus, there are very few bad jumping horses at the top level now so, with a few exceptions, most of the horses are careful enough/well enough produced to theoretically jump clear, so it often comes down to moments of unridability, tiredness, innattention or some other "preventable" situation. Of course there are horses that just don't care and sometimes they stay in the game because they're so reliable xc their people figure it's worth it for whatever reason. Also, the change in format has possibly made sj both more important and more "doable".

I think at the lower levels it's a bit of a different game. There are some horses competing that are, frankly, bad jumpers but the jumps are small enough the get away with it. They jump by braille or hang their legs xc, too, they just don't pay in the same way.

Same with riders - there are quite a few "getting away with it" xc, for whatever reason, but not in the more refined confines of the sj. A lot of people here don't seem to jump at home, only at shows, which makes it tricky to work on because the emphasis is going to be on doing things as one has always done them, not making changes. In fact they're more likely to go out schooling xc than rent out a sj course regularly!

From my very small sample here, as well, I do think some of the event sj courses don't necessarily contribute to good jumping. They may be good tests, but they aren't necessarily situation that encourage horses to jump clean in the same way lower level sj courses do.

So . . .lots of reasons, really. :) I think at the lower levels things are more or less as they always have been, but at the top end the sj had improved. Sure, you still see some scary rounds but most of the top event riders could sj to a fairly high standard.
 
smiffyimp said:
My boy has the other problem, consistantly gets double clears, but pants at the dressage
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Likewise, we usually get double clears but often get rubbish dressage scores and yet, in BD, get good percentages and placings. Maybe for me, the difference is an arena fence and a nice flat surface!!!
 
I think, particularly at lower levels (and ironically enough), that eventers can be quite prejudiced against continental warmblood breeding. Show jumping results would soon improve if more people rode horses that can pick their knees up over a fence!

Also training, loads of eventers don't like SJ so they avoid it, when really they need to work harder at it and train more (preferably with a SJ trainer, rather than an eventer!). Plus, most eventers up to Novice level don't have anywhere near good enough flat work. An accurate, fluent test will come out top 5 up to Novice without anything special, just because most tests are so crap. If the dressage test is crap, you're not giving yourself any chance of consistency in the SJ - unless it's consistently bad!

Edited to add - tend to agree that the small, strung out BE SJ courses do not encourage a good way of going, but rather a flat, strung out, not concentrating very well sort of approach...
 
daisycrazy said:
I think, particularly at lower levels (and ironically enough), that eventers can be quite prejudiced against continental warmblood breeding. Show jumping results would soon improve if more people rode horses that can pick their knees up over a fence!
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To qualify this though, there are lots of very successful showjumping lines/stallions that do not produce horses for xc, either because they are too innately careful or they don't jump in suitable way. Look how many scopey, clean jumping horses (at least just below top class) jump with their forearms below horizontal? This is not a safe way to jump xc, even more so if the horse is super tight below and the low forearm is not just dangly lack of caring (debatable but some young horses do start like that). I'm not sure people at the lower levels notice or care but I bet it makes a difference to what the top riders pick.
 
seabsicuit2 said:
I just think a lot of eventers just can't see a showjumping stride to save their life! Hence why we event not do pure showjuming.
Just seems like a lot of us eventers just don't have the skill to showjump well...
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:D :D Thank you that saves me saying it!
It is far more difficult to ride in the precise contolled manner required for SJ than it is to go round a XC course. I am not suggesting that one is more important than the other but they each require a completely different skill set. I come from a SJ family, and on ponies I would jump clear 19 times out of 20, but on horses it is completely different (in fact the only time recently my SJ kicked in instinctively was hunting last season when I hooked back (?) in stead of kicking on, needless to say the outcome was muddy!)
 
This is a v interesting thread!!

I have a WB, former pure SJ who until we started eventing had never had a pole (with me anyway!!). Since we started to event he's started to take the odd pole out. I think it may be because he's learned that it's ok to hit xc fences so it must/ might be ok to knock things in general!?

However I do find when we do pure sj on a surface he's much better. Also with BE we always do better if I get to walk the sj course v carefully beforehand!!

I do
 
digger2 said:
Supose having a sj background, a clear sj looks far easier than trying to shave 4 or even 8 marks off a dressage test.
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This is it entirely for me :o I have no arena at home, so I have always struggled with the dressage bit, I jump on grass at home (plus my horse is just a good boy!) but I cannot school on the grass very well, its not flat, and its just too much hard work.

I accept a poor dressage mark, but feel devastated if I have a pole :o :D
 
Stencilface said:
This is it entirely for me :o I have no arena at home, so I have always struggled with the dressage bit, I jump on grass at home (plus my horse is just a good boy!) but I cannot school on the grass very well, its not flat, and its just too much hard work.

I accept a poor dressage mark, but feel devastated if I have a pole :o :D
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and there's me with a dressage background who gets devastated at a bad dressage mark and has a party if we only have one fence down lol!
 
You see I don't think it is true at all that eventers struggle with the showjumping, not where I see it anyway!
At top level (infact all levels) the showjumping is considerably so much better than I see at pure showjumping shows. At CIC*** the showjumping tracks are up to height 1.25/1m30's and yet there are a lot of clears, one a couple of weeks a go was more 1m30 and very very square yet the first 5 eventers jumped clear on blood type horses, you wouldn't see that at a BS show. Eventers definately have upped their game and can see a stride better than some pure showjumpers I have seen! Horses are trained extremely well, at one international CIC*** this year the whole section was scoring over 70% in the dressage and an odd rail littered here and there. It is seriously competitive. At a big BS show I was watching this weekend the 1m20 (equivilant to advanced more or less) the number of clears was significantly less than if I had watched event riders ride the course.
I am another who is more gutted with 4 faults than a mediocore dressage- however you not only need a clear showjumping now a days but a sublime dressage to even stand a chance. One with out the other is not good enough! Damn it! :)
I also don't think the breed of horse has anything to do with it. Yes there is more continental blood at top level but still there are a lot of 'blood' horses jumping clears at all levels. Its all about the riding and training..... ETA the lower levels is dominated now a days by foreign horses so surely the showjumping results would be far better!
 
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ElleJS said:
You see I don't think it is true at all that eventers struggle with the showjumping, not where I see it anyway!
At top level (infact all levels) the showjumping is considerably so much better than I see at pure showjumping shows.
I also don't think the breed of horse has anything to do with it. Yes there is more continental blood at top level but still there are a lot of 'blood' horses jumping clears at all levels. Its all about the riding and training.....
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That is something I was trying to get across, the xc is much more forgiving at Novice and below, of riders making mistakes, but SJ isn't.
 
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