Fear of Falling (10 page)

By J.J. MACKENZIE, D.V.M.

Wild World News
—Horses are natural jumpers. With their large, muscular hind quarters and long legs, they can propel themselves over jumps taller and longer than they are. But carrying a rider over a jump is another matter. To avoid injury, both horse and rider must be carefully schooled in the art of jumping.

 

Whether you're a beginner or riding for ribbons—or even if you just love watching jumping from the comfort of your couch—there's plenty to learn about this thrilling sport.

 

Jumping ABCs.
The first obstacle a horse and rider learn to go over is not a jump at all, just a series of poles lying on the ground. As the horse trots over each pole, he won't have to jump, but he will have to pick up his feet carefully and pay attention to what's in front of him—good preparation for jumping.

 

Next, the rider takes the horse over a low jump. As the horse rises into the air, the rider stands slightly in the stirrups and leans forward to help the horse over. Gradually, as the horse and rider develop greater skills and confidence, they work up to higher and higher jumps.

 

Staying Safe.
How safe is it to become airborne on top of a 1,000-pound animal? Like all sports, jumping has risks. That's why a rider should always wear a well-fitting rid ing helmet. Traditionally, “hard hats” are made of cork covered with black velvet, but now they're sometimes made of hard plastic with foam inside, much like bike helmets. (In fact, some helmets are dual-certified for biking and riding.)

 

For taking higher jumps, horses sometimes wear their own safety gear. Special guards, or “boots,” can be fastened around the horse's lower legs to help prevent bangs or bruises if the horse hits the crossbar.

 

Even the jumps are specially designed with safety in mind. They are brightly painted, usually in white and a contrasting color, so that the horse can see them clearly. Horses see only in black and white, so having light and dark colors makes the jump more vis ible against the ground. And all but the most advanced types of jumps are designed so that the crossbar will fall off the hurdle easily if the horse hits it, which reduces the risk of injury.

 

Showtime!
For centuries, riders have enjoyed jumping horses over fences, streams, and logs while racing cross-country. This kind of racing became known as
stee plechasing
, because the riders often used church steeples as landmarks to guide them through the countryside. Nowadays a stee plechase means a full-speed horse race over a large course with extremely difficult jumps—not for the faint of heart! If you've seen the classic movie
National Velvet
, you have a sense of how challenging this sport can be. The race that young Velvet rides in (dressed as a boy, since female jockeys weren't allowed!) is the most famous stee plechase in the world, an English race called the Grand National.

 

Show jumping, another type of competitive jumping, takes place in show rings or are nas. Show jumping has been an Olympic event since 1900. As with steeplechasing, riders must clear the jumps in a certain order or they're disqualified. But in show jumping, the horse and rider must also avoid being penalized for mistakes, or
faults
. Each rider jumps the course one at a time, with the judges watching closely. The rider is faulted if the horse knocks the bar off the jump or balks at a jump and refuses to go over. Three refusals in a row and you're out! If two or more riders tie for first, they jump the course again. Then the rider with the fewest faults and the fastest time wins.

Beginning jumpers can enter
schooling shows
, small local shows for less experi enced riders. At these shows, different class es have jumps set at different heights to suit riders of varying levels. Speed is not impor tant, so the riders are not timed. Instead, the goal is to jump the course smoothly and cleanly, showing good form, with as few faults as possible.

 

The Sport of Champions.
You can watch the best jumpers in the world on television, competing in the Olympics and other international events. You'll see an impressive variety of difficult jumps, such as walls, water jumps, and
combinations
in which horses must go over two or three jumps one right after the other. You'll see horses clearing heights of seven feet or more and jumping over obstacles that really do look impossible!