What is it with kids thinking it’s cool to jump high?!

J_sarahd

Well-Known Member
Joined
17 August 2017
Messages
1,248
Visit site
I’ve seen a lot of teenagers jumping well above their ability and plastering it all over the internet. I’m all for people doing what they want with their horses but it seems there’s a trend among teenagers to think it’s more important to jump big than it is to jump well?

Is this just me?
 

J_sarahd

Well-Known Member
Joined
17 August 2017
Messages
1,248
Visit site
True! I think it’s because now it’s plastered all over social media! At least if it weren’t for social media it wouldn’t annoy me as much!
 

SOS

Well-Known Member
Joined
1 February 2016
Messages
1,440
Visit site
90s/00s here and we definitely did this. Our poor ponies on a Saturday... we would be dropped at the yard in the morning and hours of hacking, jumping, pony games, swapping horses, washing, plaiting, bareback riding would take place. Certainly were fit ponies!
 

Littlebear

Well-Known Member
Joined
27 November 2017
Messages
676
Visit site
It was very many years ago now but when I was a teenager I was jumping around foxhunter level so not small on a pony! There was always a bit of a competitive thing amongst the other girls that competed at my yard to jump higher, its certainly not what we did all the time of course but I don't think its ever been different. We all wanted to be the one jumping the biggest tracks.

Now many years on I am constantly trying to teach the younger groups I have to work on the basics. flatwork and technical course riding rather than fixating on the height, but even when I get the kids on side I sometimes have the parents shouting from the side-lines ...'excuse me she/he normally jumps a lot bigger than that can you put it up'! :rolleyes:o_O
 

J_sarahd

Well-Known Member
Joined
17 August 2017
Messages
1,248
Visit site
I think it doesn’t help that when I was a teenager I didn’t have my own pony and I rode once a week at a riding school and I was NOT a confident rider. I remember the day I jumped a 75cm oxer for the first time, I felt like I’d achieved SO much. So I was never exposed to that growing up. And now, as an adult, I see it and my reaction is disbelief
 

Hormonal Filly

Well-Known Member
Joined
24 April 2013
Messages
3,219
Visit site
Its not just kids..
I know several women who only care about the height as well, they seem to get a buzz out of riding a shocking line, practically beating the horse into it and then demolish it, but who cares as its big!
 

Lillian_paddington

Well-Known Member
Joined
6 January 2019
Messages
528
Visit site
Yep, I see a lot of this on Instagram. As a teenager with an Instagram account, personally I’m really careful about what I post, because it does get talked about if you post something in which your horse looks like it’s struggling.
However... I do like jumping high, my horse seems more excited too when the jumps go up. But I do think there’s a difference between jumping at the top end of your horse’s ability and jumping over it - I’m very aware of this as my horse loses confidence quickly, he’ll let me know if he doesn’t think he can jump something easily.
 

Annagain

Well-Known Member
Joined
10 December 2008
Messages
15,506
Visit site
I still have a photo of me standing next to the 4ft fence of a single pole I jumped on my old boy - must have been about 1994/5. No mobile phones, let alone ones with cameras in those days so we left it up and brought a camera to take a photo the next day. It was up to my shoulder and incredibly badly build, not even a dropper pole or a ground pole. Anything over 90cm is enough to induce a cold sweat these days. I've gone from massively overconfident to massively under-confident!
 

wren123

Well-Known Member
Joined
29 September 2012
Messages
2,111
Visit site
We used to do the same, we had loads of oil cans which we used and put a pole straight across the top, to be fair we quite often built grids too with a big one at the end.
As annagain says if I could harness a fraction of that confidence nowadays I'd be sorted.
 

Bernster

Well-Known Member
Joined
14 August 2011
Messages
8,029
Location
London
Visit site
That was me i my misspent summer with a pony. Took great pleasure in jumping my 12.3h pony over what I realise must now be 1m+ Not proud of it. Now I struggle go get my great big horse over 70+ !
 

MotherOfChickens

MotherDucker
Joined
3 May 2007
Messages
16,641
Location
Weathertop
Visit site
I was never the bravest jumping although I got better with my last pony who was ace. I was somewhat in awe of a local girl who didnt have expensive ponies (like me) but would seemingly get them over anything (she would literally jump anything out and about including in and out of people's gardens if their fences 'looked nice'). He ponies were 12.2h, 13h and a 13.2 and they would all jump 3'6 without thinking about it. She would lay into them too if they stopped-which I didnt like at all but I did envy her nerve.
 
Joined
28 February 2011
Messages
16,451
Visit site
90's kid here and we bombed about, jumped whatever and generally rallied our ponies about willy nilly! Until the end if the 90's when I went solely flat showing.

Even now I dont jump much - as has been detailed a few times in my random A Day In The Life Of A Work Rider posts! It's hugely entertaining when I I do jump! But in my world - if it doesnt fall over I ain't jumping it!
 

windand rain

Well-Known Member
Joined
25 November 2012
Messages
8,517
Visit site
Or even jumping at all the little child who rides my pony is desperate to jump the higher the better. She cannot even rise to the trot in an upright position. Every child that has tried to jump the old girl has fallen off the front as she jumps in a perfect parabola not running in with a head llike a giraffe. Mind you as a child we used to get jumping challenges and I have jumped a jumped at 160cm as that is my height that challenge was who could jump their own height. Another was to jump upright 45gallon oil drums and the winner was the one who jumped the fewest side by side think they were a 3ft jump with the pole thickness above so about a meter
 

Annagain

Well-Known Member
Joined
10 December 2008
Messages
15,506
Visit site
Or even jumping at all the little child who rides my pony is desperate to jump the higher the better. She cannot even rise to the trot in an upright position. Every child that has tried to jump the old girl has fallen off the front as she jumps in a perfect parabola not running in with a head llike a giraffe. Mind you as a child we used to get jumping challenges and I have jumped a jumped at 160cm as that is my height that challenge was who could jump their own height. Another was to jump upright 45gallon oil drums and the winner was the one who jumped the fewest side by side think they were a 3ft jump with the pole thickness above so about a meter

We used to do it with traffic cones - slightly smaller than the oil drums but taking one away each time. My boy consistently jumped just one traffic cone. He understood what was being asked of him and just went on autopilot, never deviating from the straight line.
 

muddy_grey

Well-Known Member
Joined
15 October 2007
Messages
1,510
Location
Kent
www.*******.com
I am so grateful there was no social media. We did who could jump the highest, we used buckets and you had to try and jump one and who could jump the widest! That was a fence of about 3' that got wider, we did put a diagonal pole over the top when it got really wide and I think I jumped about 6'3" wide eeekkk poor horse. Just an average saturday in the 90's though
 

J_sarahd

Well-Known Member
Joined
17 August 2017
Messages
1,248
Visit site
I’m talking about the kids who are not ready to be jumping 1m+ but are doing it to film and show off to their friends. Maybe I’m cynical in my older age, and perhaps jealous because I never had that phase. I don’t mind kids jumping high, if they are balanced etc enough to do so

ETA: I realise there are adults who do this too. But I just see a lot more teenagers - probably because of social media
 

windand rain

Well-Known Member
Joined
25 November 2012
Messages
8,517
Visit site
I think most of us have pushed ourselves to do silly things with our ponies as kids. Back in the day we used to jump each other!! Huge Oxer set up with 2 or 3 friends lying underneath.
yes that was another challenge we did being the one on the take off and landing was a bit scary at times. We rode in the forestry commission land among the trees never stuck to paths jumped up and down bits of quarry. We used to swim in the river it was deep enough for the horses to actually be swimming great fun.
Funny thing is that you see a kids videoed jumping the top of the plastic blocks and proudly announcing the are jumping 120cm They dont go that big unless you stand them on something. Some of the unsafe things we did that we had huge amounts of fun doing are no longer things that kids do they are mostly too health and safety conscious
 
Top