Coming from a riding tradition of galloping fast across country, and a land of ponies that will jump anything they are pointed at, it is really only fairly recently, in this age of increasing professionalism and increasingly technical tracks, that British showjumpers have started to be trained to have better leg positions. I’ve heard the British style labelled “Gallop and go” by Americans, which often seems to still fit. One reason why children often find it hard to move onto horses.
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Richard Spooner
So here is where we drag out the Richard Spooner video, as in years past when this subject is discussed, as an example showing that people who have “different” positions when jumping can ride well and effectively when they need to.
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This is certainly an iconic video clip! Bravo Richard!
OTOH, despite the fact that his lower leg slips back he demonstrates incredible balance and body control despite the big jumping efforts of his horse; I don’t see any falling on the neck or eating mane. 
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He can ride with a perfect leg. He just doesn’t always do so. There are photos of him where his knee is the only part of his body touching the saddle.
He obviously knows what he’s doing, but that doesn’t stop the peanut gallery from criticizing the extreme form he sometimes has over fences.
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Stunning wasn’t it? I never get tired of seeing his instinct to let go, and balance to not interfere with his horse.
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Exactly! It was extremely impressive - I haven’t seen it in a while, but always share it when I do 
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I posted the video on the Refusal thread as an example of a “no stop” horse.
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RYB, typing too fast. Roger-Yves Bost
I think Geoffrey Hesslink is a great example of this, he rides veryyyy softly to allow the horse freedom in the jump. His hip angle is quite closed on the strides just before and after the fence, so in a photo at the top of the bascule one could think he is ducking… but if you watch a video of him, especially in slow motion, his center of balance remains very still through the jumping effort. He’s not interfering with the horse at all, he’s moving as little as possible to stay out of the horses’ way. It takes a LOT of core strength and balance to ride in that still, soft ‘hover’ on a back-cracking performance hunter.
It’s also totally silly to imply that these successful hunter pros, who make their living riding, showing and selling horses, are not capable of “correct” eq or are cluelessly riding around with a body position that will “throw the horse off balance,” as the OP suggested. Their positions over fences aren’t due to sloppiness or ignorance, it’s very deliberate and calculated to get a specific result. This style has stuck around for a reason — it actually IS effective riding for their purposes, their horses, their discipline, and their goals. If John French wanted to ride around Derby Finals with the eq of a junior in a Maclay class or McLain Ward in a Grand Prix, he could. But his horses go better when he rides like John French, and he has decades of proof of that.
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This is SUCH an excellent point that i think most of us - who are not professionals showing in the high performance, intl derbies, or 1.40m+ jumpers - simply don’t, or can’t, or haven’t had the chance to, do. The balance that these riders have is phenomenal. They move to keep themselves (and arms, legs, shoulders, etc) in the precise position to get the BEST jump out of the horse for the obstacle in front of them. If those riders truly had “bad form” you’d see them fall perilously on the neck on impact point of landing and then rock shoulder back to counter the balance loss on getaway, and struggle for a stride or two to regain balance (ask me how I know this, personal experience as an amateur working to get stronger 
). The criticism of the professionals “equitation” when they are doing their job and doing it QUITE well is just baffling. And disappointing!
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The core strength is unreal! If we’re going to complain about anything can it be the thumbs on the neck on landing? My thumb twinges every time I have to see it.
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Exactly, I think there’s an element of “people don’t know what they don’t know,” because lots of riders just aren’t exposed to top horses, pros and programs outside of social media or maybe watching classes at shows. These are skilled, physically strong professional athletes on powerful, often sensitive horses that are jumping HARD. Their careers and incomes rely on getting the best possible performance out of horses and getting results at the shows. They know exactly what they’re doing.
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I think @173north makes an excellent point here. You are seeing a snapshot, a frozen moment in time, that makes it look like these riders are ducking, when in reality they are soft and forward and following the whole time, and they continue to follow a huge effort by allowing their arm and body to be soft. This isn’t the lesson kids you see who are sitting as tall as possible and then throw these selves on the neck and then flop backwards because they don’t actually have balance and are trying to do the horse’s job for them.
Also, with the trend over the last however many years leaning towards the bigger, slower movers who still have an explosive jump…. How many of you who want to armchair train have actually ridden that slow but powerful canter up to a big solid jump? It’s a different feeling than a gallop in the hunt field or even in the bigger jumpers. The best way for these riders to stay with the horse’s jump is to stay soft and if that means there’s a big loop in the reins and they’re close to the neck in the air, who cares?
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My hunter trainer back in the late 90’s-early 2000’s was overall pretty easy on his adult ammy riders’ equitation. BUT he would get on us for 1. looking down over the jump: “What’s to look at down there???Look where you will be going” and 2. leaning off to one side of the neck: “What exactly are you trying to do to that horse?”.
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To me, the very best example of all time is Rodney Jenkins.
It pains me to think that there are people now who hardly even recognize his name, but he was absolutely the man for many, many, many years, for both hunters and jumpers.
If you go back and look at pictures of him over the years, there are some photos where he looks like he is in a very conventional position over the jump, and there are plenty of others where he is… definitely not.
But he won tons and tons and tons over many years on a huge variety of horses. So obviously his style worked for him. And for all those horses.
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Effectiveness or necessity aside, there’s something to be said for the fact that these riders are bringing home the blues, and the style of the people who win the most is likely to be emulated the most!
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I used to wonder how the Big Eq riders had such nice positions over the courses they do. Then I got a horse with the flattest jump. Jumping 3’6” feels like going over a cross rail, and I figured out how they were able to do it.
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Comparing the equitation of high level jumpers to hunter pros jumping 3-3’9 is a bit like comparing apples to oranges. Hunter pros ducking with their legs swinging back over a “small” 3-3’9 jump is a lot different than John Whitaker not having the perfect position over 1.40+. Remember too that in the UK and Europe Equitation as a discipline is not a thing as it is in North America. Especially before the influence of the lighter seat in the UK/Europe basically you got to the jump and got out of the way of the horse to get over the jump. Google the UK showjumper Annette Lewis. There is no reason that hunter pros need to look like her in order to get over the hunter jumps.
That being said if you look at people like Tiffany Foster, McClain, Kent etc. they all look pretty perfect over the giant jumps. If they can do it, hunter pros can certainly do it over the smaller stuff.
Disclaimer- I really don’t have an issue with hunter pros looking like they do and I certainly couldn’t find a 8/9 jumps in a row as they do.
Disclaimer 2- I don’t jump higher than 3’ anymore due to injury and old age. If I did you bet my leg would be swing back and I’d not be as secure in the tack as I once was.
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Still not getting it. They aren’t trying to “get over a jump”, they are trying to get the absolute best jumping effort possible out of the animal, and this is so much more than leaving the rails up.
Jumper riders do not want back-cracking bascule at a 1.60m oxer. If it doesn’t send them flying then it leaves them unprepared to ride the landing. Jumper riders want the rails left up and nothing more, because every bit of extra exertion used on top of the fence not only costs them valuable seconds, but also leaves them with less horse between the fences.
As a card carrying hunter princess that has never done the big jumpers, I once fell in love with a gorgeous jumping jumper mare that jumped the ever living heck out of her fences. Showed her to one of my big jumper friends and was shocked to see she had zip, zero, nada interest in trying to stay on that jump at 1.40m+. This lovely mare, which I was absolutely drooling over, was utterly useless to her.
The jumps. are not. the same. Apples & oranges.
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But… If you (g) are ducking to one side or the other, weight on the neck, and legs swung back which means most of the rider’s weight is on the front/side of the horse wouldn’t that impede the perfect jump…as opposed to someone well balanced, in the middle of the horse, off the horse’s front end?
And then for many…not just one, two or three strides after the jump, the trend to still be on the neck. How does that work?
I’m not a physics person… I don’t know how it works.
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