Tell me about BE SJing

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Vodkagirly

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Hiya
Overly excited about next years calendar coming out and looked at a couple of BE80's as possibilities, due to advancing years both me and horse, I think 90 may be a bit much of an ask. Looked at XC pictures and they look achievable :)
However SJ is our weakness, he turns in to a coward at fillers, water trays and planks. Planning to work on this over the winter but what is BE showjumping comparable to? eg if I can get him clear over 80cm BS club shows would I be ok?
It would a massive ambition if i could get around but no point spending £100 on entries and 2 hours drive to be eliminated at sj.....
 
They do have the usual fillers and planks, I have never seen a water tray, not sure they can use one at the lower levels. The courses are flowing and fair, if you are doing BS confidently you should find BE80 straightforward.
 
BE courses will have all your normal fillers etc. the one 80 i did had the filler slanted to be moe encouraging on the irst few fences. If you can jump round an 80 you should be fine at BE :)
 
Courses are normally very straight forward, one double, oxers tend to be ascending. You'll find two jumps are 5cm bigger, one oxer and one upright and the first two jumps are under height. You'll generally find there's more space than with BS. You'll also get three warm up jumps in the arena - cross, upright and oxer - much more civilised!
 
I've done some 80's, the courses are very simple to remember after pure SJ, normally a figure of 8, there may be some dog legs.
Normal proper SJ fillers, first fence is tiny but they do have an 85cm spread somewhere in the course. I dont know if it was me but apart from the first fence the spread fences are quite wide, they pull the wings apart comparable to BS if not more so I thought but then again you don't notice that when the horse jumps.

I've enjoyed the BE showjumping, it's really not hard and is pretty encouraging, the 80 XC is very encouraging as well as it's for baby's :).
I made sure I was jumping 90cm unaff courses out before I went and that meant we found it easy :).
 
Thanks, we aren't quite jumping 80cm courses first time yet. Though if there is a 60 & 70 we are usually clear (or close) by 80, its just the first time thats the issue in eventing. Still 4 months to figure it out.....
 
if you can jump 80cm BS courses you will be fine. as above they start a little smaller and the biggest fences tend to be at the end so you don't really notice that they are bigger.... whereas (in my experience) BS they tend to be all up to height from the off.... BS (i find) are always squarer and wider than eventing showjumping courses i've done and they are more technical usually. don't think they can use water trays until intermediate :)
 
Agree with ArcticFox you need to ditch the 60 and 70 classes. You'll find its just a mind set. You know you can jump 80 but feel you need the comfort of doing the 60 and 70 first just to make sure. Problem is that when you walk an 80 class it seems big but if you get used to just doing 80's you wont even think twice about the height!
 
agree with above :)
you need to learn to use your warm up to more thoroughly instead of using the smaller classes , do it gradually over the course of the winter drop the smallest class and add on a larger one at the end when you both get confedent ,so your still doing 2-3 classes but gradually beginning with a bigger class until your up to 80cm

i'd be wanting to be jumping 85cm happy before entering a BE80 because there will be 2-3 fences at 85cm and for some reason BE SJ just seem's bigger to me :o and i found my horse was very distracted by the trade stands and people around the arena and fair crashed into our first sj at our first event :eek: not good for the nerves

depends on the horse really some might not be bothered about things around the ring but mine was and i found it very different jumping on grass compared to an arena ,when i bring mine back into work/if i were to prepare another horse i'd take it to plenty of summer shows so being asked to jump on grass isn't such a shock

hope there's something helpful in my ramblings ,good luck :)
 
Agree, jumping on grass is very different so if you can find any venue which has grass arena go there as much as possible.

It took me 2-3 seasons to get used to competing on grass and not getting eliminated. For that reason I didnt affiliate until I'd got it sorted as they generally speaking don't allow you to go XC if you are eliminated at SJ - which mades for a VERY expensive dressage test!!
 
Made some progress this weekend, went to a local fun day and the person I was hacking there with was late so missed the first classes so I started at 2'6. Got a refusal and a pole down but was happy he was moving forward more so went for the 2'9 :) admittedly it was an easy 2'9, no fillers and the spreads were minimal but got round with one refusal and came 5th :D:D:D:D:D
First rosette for sj and for the biggest class to date! got 2 clinics coming up over the next fortnight and can't wait to do some more.
 
Vodkagirly said:
Made some progress this weekend, went to a local fun day and the person I was hacking there with was late so missed the first classes so I started at 2'6. Got a refusal and a pole down but was happy he was moving forward more so went for the 2'9 :) admittedly it was an easy 2'9, no fillers and the spreads were minimal but got round with one refusal and came 5th :D:D:D:D:D
First rosette for sj and for the biggest class to date! got 2 clinics coming up over the next fortnight and can't wait to do some more.
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Well done. Just keep working on it. You now know that 2'9 isn't that scary, so you can work from that. If you get more confident with the hight, then your horse will be more confident too, and therefore less likely to refuse. Practise makes Perfect so get to as many shows as possible.
 
Vodkagirly, your plan is mine exactly and for the same reasons! Really interested in your post, please let us know how things are progressing! I will try and get to some more SJ's through the winter:)
 
Well done!!
I also made sure I was jumping 1m courses at home/clinics. I know it seems a bit overkill for 80 but I think when your paying £150 odd pounds for the whole day out is best to be prepared!!
I did local events so I walked the XC and SJ course the night before and really though about how I was going to ride them overnight. I actually walked the BE90 SJ not the 80, didn't realise and I was very happy with the height. It was only the next day that I realised when they put the jumps down for my class! It was same course though so OK.
In a way it was good I thought the jumps were minute as TBH for a first time out affiliated, it is a BIG atmosphere and it felt to me very nerve wracking!!
Lots of trade stands, tanoy, spectators, horses ect and I was glad I had practiced and was jumping clear and confidently over so much bigger as tbh the jumps were the last thing I was worried about!
I would make sure you are consistently jumping without any
stops. Practice over the winter and if you are regularly jumping 2ft9/3ft courses clear and with no thoughts of stopping you will be fine.
The last event I did, one third of my section didn't complete and retired or got eliminated on the SJ or XC I was surprised by that but I suppose some people didn't think about how much the atmosphere could affect the horse or they weren't prepared enough.
It's better to be overprepared and think 'oh that was easy, what's all the fuss about' than be one of the ones who don't complete or have a cricket score :).
 
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