Hi everyone,
Just wanted to know what everyone thinks about the Jump 4 Joy jumps. Every time I have been to a show in which they are used there seems to be an uncommon amount of rails.
Thanks!
We have them at our barn and I find them to be very user friendly, and no more rails than “normal” poles.
I did see someone SHATTER a standard (the tripod ones for warm up, not the regular ones) by knocking it over and Landing on it .
I have jumped them both at shows and at home (our trainer is slowly acquiring the components of a full Jumps 4 Joy course) and I think they are fantastic. Very easy to set up and move around, and the poles, while lighter than wooden poles, still have some heft. They are very versatile and the colors, pattens and shapes are fantastic!
I would be curious to see some studies or stats showing whether they do come down easier than wooden poles. The times I’ve jumped them at shows, there have been a lot of rails down, but not necessarily because they are too light, just because of not great riding. I’ve seen them bumped hard and stay up, and I’ve seen them ticked and come down.
Another option would be to get the Jumps 4 Joy, and then get wooden poles for the top rails, painted to match. I’ve seen that done with other PVC type jump setups.
I’ve never jumped these jumps, but I love what I’ve seen online. Re: more rails than normal- the poles come in many different weights, from 2.7kg to 13kg, if they were lighter poles maybe thats why there were more falling than normal.
There were 156 competitors at Otter Creek Horse Trials, and there were 1060 jumping faults throughout the day on Sunday, majority of them being rails and some of them being stops. I did the math for Poplar Place September Horse Trials, the same weekend, which had 206 riders and only 648 jumping faults throughout the day, which I also assume some were stops but most were rails. Obviously something was going on with our Jump 4 Joy jumps! I looked for reviews online but couldn’t find anything. So far my experience with the Jump 4 Joy jumps has not been positive. The horses, even if they are jumping well are punished for doing their job. So Otter Creek had up to 265 rails while Poplar had up to 162 rails…I think something should be said for the jumps that were used. I mean one person had up to 11 rails, and has jumped clean around other shows before…
Although, I would like to say the reason OCF used the Jump 4 Joy Jumps was because they sponsored the show for fundraising for breast cancer, overall it was a good cause, but besides that I wanted to hear if there is a high rail count at other shows that have used Jump 4 Joy jumps.
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Whoa…You have a company that sponsored a show for breast cancer fundraising and then come on a public board and make this statement about your show sponsor?
[quote=LHBEventing;5125719] So far my experience with the Jump 4 Joy jumps has not been positive. The horses, even if they are jumping well are punished for doing their job.
[/quote]
That’s not cool. :no:
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We have both jump for joy and regular wooden jumps. I can’t say the J4J poles come down easier, although they are lighter. For my guy who tends to be a little disrespectful of stadium fences the wooden poles are a better “reminder” to lift up his front end!
Do the stats for both Wayne DuPages and OC. LOTS of rails. Love both HT’s, did not ride at either this year. Number of rails was outrageous. Sorry to ding a sponsor of ANYTHING, but I teach at one facility that has J4J and I HATE them. I think the number of rails in the SJ has to be examined. I have rarely seen a 16, let alone multiple 20’s.
I own Jump for Joy poles. I will NEVER recommend them to anyone.
The “company” is extremely poorly run. For example, my order was well over 6+months late, and they could care less to provide any sort of compensation or ETA. Secondly when the first dozen poles arrived, there was a serious manufacturing defect. I left the poles in the arena, during a heavy rain storm. The next week when I went to drag the ring and re-build the course every pole gained weight and leaked! The water had seeped through the seams.
Despite them admitting they entire lot had the issue, it took me over a year for them to send me new poles. When the new poles finally arrived, they were a mis-match of colors. Honestly, for the ridiculous amount of money they are (I paid around $55/ea in 2008) you are much better off with another company.
Caveat Emptor…
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I just saw them used for the first time.
To me, it should have been a HUGE wake up call to the riders about how many rails their horses were actually touching and have been touching.
Now, would it be better for that to happen in a training setting rather than a recognized event? My opinion is yes. However, while I have more respect for eventers every time I slap on a pinny and get out there over my baby courses - I think that the stadium is a HUGE hole in the preparation. Even in warm up - so different than what jumpers do.
I realize that a horse that can do a prelim course double clear is a different sort than my mare that has not made it through without time faults over a BN course yet, but I still think the stadium in eventing is chaotic at best sometime, especially at upper levels. (I realize that every one has a bad day and anyone can pull rails all over the place if things aren’t going your way…)
My horse rarely pulls rails and she did 1 - at BN at that! Why? Because I tried something edgy to make it more exciting and like an idiot I looked down RIGHT over the fence and just like a textbook, her hind hit the rail. Would it have come down over a normal fence? I think so. Otherwise, I rode it differently. You get to walk the course - you can test out the poles - I always check to see how easy they are to roll off.
In any event, we were all jumping the same fences. Same poles. It was a level playing field.
THERE WERE CLEAN ROUNDS. I loved watching riders adjust. One rider did a great job adjusting after the first fence. Another took them flat and gallopy but made it with one rail I think. Most of the ones that had rails rode each fence the same.
Eventing stadium courses are very “huntery” so you only have to worry about a turn here or there or a combination, but no vertical to oxer to vertical stuff.
(Note, I have NO affiliation with Jump4Joy).
[QUOTE=Lisa Cook;5125968]
Whoa…You have a company that sponsored a show for breast cancer fundraising and then come on a public board and make this statement about your show sponsor?
That’s not cool. :no:[/QUOTE]
I’m sorry to offend you, I am just doing some research on what others think of the fences themselves. Like I said, the sponsor was for a good cause and fundraising money for breast cancer is a VERY good cause. The fact of the matter is, I am not talking about the sponsorship, or the fundraising, I am talking about the jumps themselves and what people think of them. I know other companies make the same type of fences, so if it makes you feel better - what about ANY type of polymer type pole and standard?
One thing I noticed was that the cups “appeared” to be a bit rounder than others I have seen used. To me, it was a bit of a trade-off. I know the cups were “rounder” Than those I use at home (and I am talking about the rounded side of my cup), but I’m not an expert on cups and so maybe they were normal…
To answer your question more directly - I believe they do come down easier. I would not want to train with them consistenly so the horse got used to them falling “easier”, but I was actually looking forward to riding the course as I wanted to see if my mare is cheating at all. I think they would be useful to have 2 - 3 fences to train on and do a “reality” check.
Because of what I saw at OCF, I am definitely going to put together and use at least one PVC pole jump in my training next year. (I just have a small place or I would have more). Why kid yourself that you aren’t hitting rails if you really are?
[QUOTE=akor;5126410]
I
In any event, we were all jumping the same fences. Same poles. It was a level playing field.
Eventing stadium courses are very “huntery” so you only have to worry about a turn here or there or a combination, but no vertical to oxer to vertical stuff.
(Note, I have NO affiliation with Jump4Joy).[/QUOTE]
It was a level playing field for those at that competition, but for those trying to qualify for a three day or to move up a level, 16 penalties in SJ and you have just wasted your time. It also looks like hell on the record of a decent horse.
As far as eventing stadium courses being very “huntery”, I would beg to differ. There are plenty of vertical to oxer to vertical courses, plenty with lots of turns and zero ground lines.
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Well, we must ride and see different eventing stadium courses.
You HAVE TO turn in an arena to get from one end to the other, I am talking about a real rollback.
Can’t stand the company. Two years ago my husband ordered some jumps from them for my birthday gift. They never came–I mean, never. After a few months, my husband contacted them, which was not easy to do as they didn’t tend to answer phone calls or return emails, and was told the jumps would be arriving very soon. After a few more months, they said they didn’t know when we’d get the jumps. A year and a half after we placed the order, they called, and said, did we want some jumps from them? We said no, and told them that we had been extremely dissatisfied by their service. They didn’t seem to care.
[QUOTE=akor;5126901]
Well, we must ride and see different eventing stadium courses.
You HAVE TO turn in an arena to get from one end to the other, I am talking about a real rollback.[/QUOTE]
Haven’t seen a lot of real rollbacks in the low childrens/adults either or any triples (except maybe in the classic). BN and N are not supposed to be that difficult. Triples and rollbacks don’t show up until training level. And since you have already said you are fairly new to eventing, we probably have seen and ridden different courses.
over all, we like 'em
Our organization has gone to all J4j. More for the reason of lack of volunteers to to fix and paint jumps every year. Our jumps are always in storage when not in use.
What I like about the j4j: always look great, well made, poles are heavy, standards easy to move around and to store, lots of options, don’t have to paint, any warranty issue has always been addressed and sometimes with bonus items.
What I don’t like about the j4j: need to sandbag standards when windy, safety cups can be a PITA to put back together, some orders have missed some parts or standards, but always has been remedied in a few months.
Thoughts: The actual manufacturer is in England, the women who have the distribution in the US I don’t consider “sales and marketing” people, more like regular horse people…meaning I’m in sales and see what they are doing wrong. While they are very nice and have bent over backwards for our organization and always get back to us, they can be slow. But again, I think that comes from the manufacturer overseas and not them. I deal with offshore vendors and am familiar with the European way of doing things, being timely isn’t necessarity one of them.
Per competitions: We don’t notice any more rails at our shows than others, some horses can have a pretty hard rub and it stays on (my horse included, he can really whack them and imagine my surprise when we have a clear round). We use them for our clinics too and none of the clinicians comment on extra rails or complain except for one clinician, she doesnt like round poles.
Item to note: This year at our HT, the TD had us flip the cups to the flatter sides (per USEF rules) for all the oxers, gates, etc. Now those could barely be touched and come down, so we are investing some friendlier flatter safety cups for this year.
Finally, I don’t think these jumps can be left out 24/7 but I foresee longevity with my organization which uses them for 2 HT’s, a couple CT’s and up to 4 clinics a year, the rest of the time they are in storage.
Just my 2 cents.
In the UK we had issues eventing with plastic poles and show organisers are encouraged to use wooden poles. It is not often you will see plastic poles and there will often be a lot of moaning about it. They do fall easier but many of them are now weighted to stop this issue and to make them comparable to wood.
[QUOTE=mugsgame;5127187]
In the UK we had issues eventing with plastic poles and show organisers are encouraged to use wooden poles. It is not often you will see plastic poles and there will often be a lot of moaning about it. They do fall easier but many of them are now weighted to stop this issue and to make them comparable to wood.[/QUOTE]
Ah, that reminds me, the Plastic poles we use from J4J are solid in the inside with heavy wood filler (basically a wood pole), gaps filled with injected plastic. so ours are pretty heavy.
This thread made me start thinking: if people are complaining about more rails coming down with non-wooden poles, perhaps we are relying too much on the hope that wooden poles are less likely to drop, instead of focusing on improving the quality of our horses’ jumps? I know that my horse has bumped some wooden rails that probably should have fallen but didn’t. Maybe it all evens out in the end: everyone will have some rails they deserved, and some they didn’t.
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