Organizing a schooling jumper show...let me know your thoughts

[hillary_again]

We ran a fun jumper show last year and I learned a ton organizing it. What I learned: this is a training day. People want to get in and go home after getting that experience. If your group is different, these lessons may not apply.

Lower levels do not need speed - optimum time. That’s plenty for them. Two classes are probably enough.

“Higher levels” - one optimum time class, one speed class. No jump off classes - takes too long. If you have enough time, then run another optimum time or table IIb.

That would have been enough for our riders. Remember, you have to raise all the jumps for each group, and maybe water and drag too.

[Xctrygirl]

Fair warning I have started to write this 3 times and deleted it over and over. But this time screw it I am saying what I think.

You should have a class that has some speed to it for all divisions. Maybe a Table 2C would be best because it’s only half a round of speed.

Just because we need to teach speed better to green riders, horses etc is not a reason to remove it entirely. Fast rounds can be safe. Slow rounds can be dangerous. Education is important so make it a course that has ways of going quicker that help to teach. Don’t give them a course where it’s easier to make bad choices. This is where course design is important. Slow down the possible "fastness’ by building wisely.

You cannot remove all the danger all the way through the early learning process and then expect them to adapt quickly when they’re then at a level with speed. The lack of prep will bite you and everyone in the backside.

Be better teachers. Stop hooting and hollering from the fence and let what you have taught your students before the show to guide them in the ring, without your vocal chords playing a role. Make the students LEARN the course and be quiet from the sidelines. (This is why I love the elimination for “outside assistance” in eventing) You want a ribbon, you need to know the course. Want to do well, need to know the things that are non-negotiable. Kids in other countries manage it. So can ours.

We can criticize the riders who go too fast ad nauseum but for sure there are MANY people influencing the speed and issues in the ring. Start fixing the problem at home and don’t remove the speed from shows. Avoiding it is not a solution.

Em

[CBoylen]

Of course everyone agrees that it needs to be taught better. The reality is though when you are running a local schooling jumper show you are policing the safety of those who are not taught better. On your insurance.
You also have to know your market. Here our schooling jumper shows are mostly foxhunters or very local hunters. Not people practicing for real jumper shows or eventers. You get basically a handful of them. The majority are cross railers who have been to maybe one show in the short stirrup. Mostly trotting. The rest are 2ft or 2 foot six local hunter riders. They are going to go around the ring at 48 miles an hour because they forgot to make the inside turn and are galloping all the way around the entire ring to get to the next one. If you get three 3’ers it’s a miracle, and they are also likely to be very local hunter riders. Most are on lesson horses or on ponies.
Honestly I let other people run The ones that are actually pinning the classes. When I do it I just run schooling rounds and set a good course that’s useful practice for my own jumper riders but safe enough for horses of various stride length and ponies. You have to be very careful where you put the oxers and definitely use wooden pins or safety cups for back rails. Usually no oxers until 2’6”.
It’s just like course setting for anything else, there’s a very delicate balance between making sure the most experienced pairs are challenged, but the least experienced are safe. You can give them choices, but really the ones you worry about aren’t going to know what the choices are. You can’t train other people’s clients, and some don’t have trainers at all.

[enjoytheride]

Agree strongly. It’s not the responsibility of the show to train the competitors.

[Xctrygirl]

I didn’t say it was. But you can build jump off/speed courses that are harder to abuse with unsafe speed.

Em

[Peggy]

My trainer used to incorporate things like this when she designed courses for our local series. She had the added fun of having to design jumper courses without moving the jumps much, if at all, from the hunter eq tracks.

[onlyTBmares]

You know I’ve been stewing on this exact point for a while because I agree with your entire post, but then think, we shouldn’t be encouraging these reckless riders we all see at the lower levels. It’s just crap riding and training and shouldn’t be awarded with blue ribbons because they didn’t crash. I wish that they could just be judged. Extra points for riding a tricky line well and leaving out a stride, extra points for a gallop that’s forward and balanced, leads should be irrelevant as long as the horse is balanced, negative points for reckless speed.

[173north]

I feel similarly after watching some lower level jumpers in the past few months at both schooling shows and A shows… I’d love to see optimum time with a small style element. A couple bonus points for a thoughtfully ridden round, points knocked off for dangerous riding.

I think the scariness of the local level jumpers also depends on your area and what shows you attend. I never understood why people found it so scary when I rode and showed in NJ. Then I moved and I get it now! If a schooling show in my area did offer optimum time, I would make a major effort to attend and support them.

[vxf111]

There is a trainer I love who has been around here basically since dinosaurs roamed the earth and he often has a couple adult riders who have been around forever (and know better) and also run in low jumper classes in terrifying ways. If those folks haven’t learned by now, I’m skeptical that sophisticated course design is going to teach them. Some people just don’t care to be safe and they’re going to run. If they also care about ribbons, at least optimum time disincentives the running. You still get some opportunities to show speed in a class with a jump off, so I don’t see a need to also have speed classes when you know some morons are going to run around in them.

[Night_Flight]

Depending on who you have judging, you can have one of the classes at each of the lower levels be jumper equitation. We do that at our local shows around here, and at least that course doesn’t end up having scary fast rounds.

[Flyaways]

@onlyTBmares

Extra points for riding a tricky line well and leaving out a stride, extra points for a gallop that’s forward and balanced, leads should be irrelevant as long as the horse is balanced, negative points for reckless speed.

Isn’t that just a handy hunter or an eq class?

Table IV can still be ridden by galloping around the far corners of the ring or getting close to the end and then slowing to a trot or walk. I see a lot of “Clear Round” classes offered around here, judged on Table II (no section), so everyone clear and inside the TA ties for first place.

FWIW, in this area usually people in the crossrails are there with baby horses and perfectly happy to putz around at a trot. It’s at 2’9" up that I see more stupid riding. I think people who are that competitive usually don’t care about the crossrails. They want to win over the “big” jumps.

[foursocks]

The lower levels (.90m/under at schooling shows, 1.10m/under at rated), are always going to have some yahoos. I don’t think the show needs to offer classes that encourage extra idiocy, since the regular amount is going to be there anyway. Higher levels, sure; if your area supports that it’s a fun thing to offer a special class to challenge those who are (generally) going to ride more thoughtfully to the bigger jumps.

Most of the schooling shows around here only offer up to .90m, if that, but the handful of nicer ones definitely encourage UL eventers who are out to school and people like me, who will do both rated and schooling depending on my situation. Right now it’s schooling because my horse has been in and out of work for nearly three years due to injuries, so we are stepping down to the 1m, but I’m planning to use the summer schooling shows to get us back up to 1.20m by the winter. At Swan Lake we’ll get Boyd or Phillip or whoever at the schooling shows, which is always fun. I’m not sure they would have much use for something like a gambler’s choice, though, since they are just coming to school between events.

In my area (MD/PA) we have some decent schooling shows and even some Bs that offer .70m to 1.20m. Every division up to the 1m has a good bunch of crazypants and I don’t need to see those people doing a special class that eggs on the deathwish riding. We also have quite a few eventing venues that do twilight jumpers, or unjudged schooling rounds in a show atmosphere. Because eventers don’t have jump offs and (except in the UL) don’t have tricky questions in their stadium courses, these tend to be less scary than the jumper shows!

[onlyTBmares]

great point! Just a handy hunter round where leads don’t matter

[Xctrygirl]

What cracks me up… Plantation had a schooling jumper night Weds. That course had a triple.

I cannot tell you the last time I jumped a triple at an A show or and AA show. And I have gone through 1.35 without seeing one.

Em

[Herefordgirl]

Plantation jumpers are probably geared towards eventers which have triples in their courses.

[Xctrygirl]

Oh I know. Just still cracks me up.

Em

[Herefordgirl]

Thank you all for your replies! I appreciate you taking the time! It is going to be mostly eventers, pony clubbers and fox hunters.

[stargzng386]

The shows I worked were timed and there was only one scary rider going too fast. The terrifying rounds were kids over horsed and entered into heights they had no business jumping. There were a good number of those and there’s really nothing we could do except for ring the rider out after a few refusals. There was a two stride at the end of the course that caught a bunch of riders surprisingly with just easy refusals they jumped it fine the second time. There were rollbacks and bending lines so steering was important.

[foursocks]

Well, I guess I wouldn’t call a triple a tricky question unless it’s set weird, such as a long line to a short in and out or whatever. I’ve walked a lot of eventing stadium courses and they rarely are set wonky, even at the UL. At the VA Horse Trials at the end of May there were a couple of mildly tight or long related distances in the Prelim and up, but nothing unmanageable for most pairs.

I haven’t shown rated since mid-2019 (see: injuries referenced above), but I feel like I’ve jumped lots of triples. Hmm. Maybe not…? It’s hard to remember!

[Highflyer1]

Triples are pretty common starting at Training level at recognized events. At least one place locally that hosts a lot of CTs usually has them too. But yes, I would say that most eventing courses are set to give an average horse and rider at the level a good experience. (Which they should be, they’re meant to test accuracy and obedience but only as a part of the whole picture.)

I actually disagree that lower level jumper shows (and I’ll specify under a meter as the divide for this) need to teach or reward speed. A very, very small percentage of the people competing below this height are ever going to go on to compete the higher levels and need to go at any kind of speed. The ones who do would almost all benefit more from learning accuracy before they learn to really gallop at a fence. Being able to win a 2’7 speed class by turning and burning in no way prepares you to win at 3’7 where precision and sensitivity are way more important. I did a lot of unrecognized jumper shows with my last horse and routinely got beaten at 2’6- 3’3 by people who were willing to really run aroumd the course. By learning to set my horse up and make appropriate turns I was able to move him up and compete at 3’5 and eventually at 3’7 while many of them stayed at 2’7.