Advanced Equestrian Jumping

The horse has been used in warfare since as early as 4000 BCE. There is archaeological evidence in the steppes of Eurasia of fortified towns being built to defend against horse-riding bandits and raiders. In 1350 BCE, the Hittite tribe developed a written manual for successfully breeding and conditioning chariot horses. Thus, since before written history and throughout the recorded development of mankind, horses have been a powerful ally to victorious armies and successful agriculturalists. In Medieval Europe, the heavy armor of mounted knights required a new style of horses, strong like a draft horse but athletic like lighter breeds. The destrier, and lesser so the courser and rouncey, became the type (not breed) of horse that would fetch the highest price among nobles and elite military officers.

In this free video series professional horse riding instructor Mara Keith-Hunter teaches you to ride a horse through an advanced jumping line. Mara covers marking out a line with five strides and teaching you how to collect the horse's gait to jump the line with five, six or seven strides. You will also learn how to set up a three jump line. Mara covers taking a jumping course in a bending line, which offers its own challenges, or as a straight line, which puts the horse at the jumps from an angle. As always, Mara offers tips on warm ups and cool downs as well.

"Today we will be going through advanced jumping exercises. We have two different exercises set up. Both will test both the horses and riders ability to be accurate and precise with each of their movements. One exercise will require a lot of adjusting of the horse's stride, while the other will require the rider to hold their horse onto a very precise line. It's important when working on advanced riding exercises that you have a ground person to help you with distances and with setting different heights of the fences. It's also a good idea to have a trainer so they can guide you and help you to make the exercise go smoothly. As always, when jumping, it's important that you have proper tack on and I like to have all four boots on my horse just to protect their legs in case anything goes wrong, in case they hit themselves. And you want to make sure that you have a good length of stirrup, always at least one hole shorter than your flat stirrup."