The most basic (and useful) piece of gymnastic jumping equipment is, simply, rails, either natural-colored or painted. You can use them to do anything. And you can set as few as three and as many as 10 of them at a certain distance to trot or canter through them, or you can place them randomly around your riding arena.
Trot rails, set 4 to 4 ½ feet apart, are the best way to introduce horses to jumping and are excellent exercises for building strength and balance, whether your horse jumps for a living or not. (See last month's article "Using Gymnastic Exercises Can Improve Horses In All Disciplines.")
You can set up a long line of them (up to nine or 10 poles) down one side of the ring, in the center or even across a diagonal. Or you set a group of three or four rails, then have a break of several strides to another group of three or four rails. Or you could set up groups of rails in two to four areas of the ring.
You can do the same thing with single rails and canter over them as if they were jumps. This is a very good exercise to practice keeping your rhythm and balance-the key elements to finding the proper distance-as you approach and leave a jump without subjecting your horse to the stress of a jumping school.
Traditional-type cavaletti are the next step up from rails on the ground. Set them so the rails are raised to about 6 inches off the ground to do all the same exercises just described. The raised rails will literally raise the level of strength and balance required from the horse, thus further developing those important attributes.
The next basic gymnastic exercise is to place three or four rails (set 4 ½ feet apart) in front of a crossrail, placed 9 feet from the last rail. The trot rails put the horse in balance for jumping the crossrail. This is the beginning of an almost endless list of gymnastic exercises.
You'll notice in the exercises we'll describe below that sometimes we use trot rails, sometimes we use a single placing rail, and sometimes we use neither. It depends on the purpose of the exercise and whether the exercise is designed to be begun at the trot or the canter. Similarly, the distances between the jumps will be determined by the initial gait, the height of the jumps, the purpose of the exercise, and the number of strides the horse should take between the jumps.
Add Jumps
Exercise No. 2 moves directly on from No. 1. Put a placing rail 9 feet in front of a crossrail set at 2 feet to 2'6". Set a vertical 18 feet away and then an oxer 18 feet beyond that. Both fences should be about 2'6" high, and the oxer can be slightly ascending (the back rail about 3 inches higher than the front rail).
You can either trot or canter into this exercise-if you want to trot, set the placing rail at 6 feet in front of the crossrail. If you canter, set the placing rail at 9 feet. Trotting will give a green horse more time to see the exercise and will also help horses who rush. Cantering will teach you and your horse to ride forward to deep distances (instead of holding them to the bottom of the fence) and to compress the frame and stride to jump from a deep distance.
To help riders develop their balance, position and their confidence, this is an excellent exercise to jump with no stirrups and/or with no hands. It's best to either cross the stirrup irons over the horse's withers or remove them from the saddle. To jump without reins, you can tie them in a knot or unfasten the buckle and pass them through a neck strap, martingale or breastplate. Obviously, you should have a reliable horse.
Exercise No. 3 builds upon Exercise No. 2. After the oxer, place another oxer 30 feet (two strides) away, then place a vertical 19 feet (one stride) from the oxer and another vertical 12 feet (bounce) from that vertical. You now have a gymnastic combination of six efforts, an exercise that requires the horse to use his hindquarters and back correctly and will keep him balanced so that you can work on your position and balance.
