The other day as I perusing FB I came across a post with a picture of a young girl over fences. Her hands were near (literally) her pony’s ears and her lower leg had swung back. Everyone was commenting on how great her position was and what a nice big release she was giving her pony. Granted she looked a lot better than some of the kids who look like they’re posing but this looked extreme. Is this the new thing now? Throw your hands up the horse’s neck to right below the ears? It wasn’t like this was some huge oxer, but a 2’ vertical.
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Meh it’s been around forever, you almost couldn’t escape it a decade ago! It’s falling out of style and the good programs don’t encourage it. Still, less educated folks think that the difference between them and John French is the brand of their helmet and the length of their crest release.
Careful with the “everyone” commenting as a sample of the real world - usually the out of touch gushing over position and what have you is from the poster’s peers. Social media in general is a mask and a fake front - even with the most “honest” and best intentions!
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There are endless threads in this section of the forum where people poke holes in the position of all hunter riders.
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Yeah, I don’t spend too much time over here but wanted to check if this was new. The “everyone” was everyone that commented.
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Yep, sample of peers, typically. It’s social media etiquette to like and comment on your friends’ posts and those you follow. Even a disingenuous but “polite” OMG SO CUTE comment is acceptable. Doesn’t mean A. The people actually agree with their comment or B. Those people know anything about horses or the discipline.
The dramatic over release is both common and also a sign of inexperience.
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I’d rather see an over release than an animal getting stiffed in the mouth.
Y’all been bored lately? We went for a while without any “omg hunter riders suck” threads and now there have been 2 in short succession.
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Isn’t there a resurgence every year around the holidays?
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Not politically correct these days, but when I started riding the guru of correct riding and jumping position for me was George Morris. I must have watched his VCR tape on jumping style a hundred times. And I enjoyed his monthly comments on three jumping pictures in Practical Horseman (IIRC the magazine).
I used to try and try to use an automatic release, prematurely in my riding career as I realized later, skipping over crest releases. Anyway, these days I look at many of the jumping pictures in COTH of young champion hunter riders, shake my head, and ask myself “what would George be saying about this one?”
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I saw that, I believe it was from the UK? The leg position of the rider sort of had me going WTF to be honest.
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Most people who comment, don’t have a clue what they are talking about. GHM book described the different releases. Short, long, automatic, etc. throwing your body on the neck, puts all your weight there and puts you in a precarious position if the horse stops or stumbles. You want your hips to be behind the pommel, regardless of what your arms do.
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i think i saw that same photo, and yes it was from the UK. It was over dramatic as a release for sure, and she didnt look terribly stable based off her leg swinging back but i think a lot of people are happy to see any photo where the horse isnt getting it in the mouth
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If one is concerned about form over fences, there is a book for this.
“Form Over Fences” by Jane Marshall Dillon is the only book I have found which is ONLY about form over the fences. It is full of pictures identifying all of the 32 rider faults over the fences, both serious and not so serious.
I gave my riding teacher a copy of this book back when I had a faint hope of being able to jump again. I told my riding teacher that what this book shows as correct riding over the jumps was the only way I wanted to jump.
Well I never was stable enough to get back into jumping horses but my riding teacher started taking pictures with her phone so that her students could realize how they looked over fences. Some of her students were shocked. Jane Dillon does not use the term “automatic release”, we just kept contact with the horse’s mouth when we went over the jumps.
The author usually has multiple photos illustrating every mistake, hand mistakes, head mistakes, body mistakes, leg mistakes, just about every possible mistake one can make while jumping. She dissects the photos and discusses every fault. She also has very good suggestions of how to correct these faults. This was back when almost every serious hunter-jumper rider was doing their best to get to be good enough to keep good, soft and effective contact over the jumps.
Jane Marshall Dillon started off TWO Olympic jumping medal winners when they were children starting to learn how to ride properly (Kathy Kusner and Joe Fargis.) She knew how to teach people how to jump horses effectively and non-abusively, in the hunter ring and in the jumper ring, as well as cross-country.
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I’ve said this before, but if your reins are the correct length, you don’t need to “release”. Keep your hands on their neck as it rises underneath you. Hands forward as the landing gear goes down. No “hover releases”. This whole concept of throwing your hands anywhere is baffling to me. Just have your reins short enough to begin with, and your hands will be right where they need to be.
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Look at Beezie. The only time her hands move from their home base is to grab a chunk of mane on that freak she’s jumping. 
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Yep! There’s a difference between planting the hands at the withers and having a correct rein length too.
Assuming you have a solid base and aren’t falling back or forward of the motion, a “still” hand can work just fine. The long/crest release has a place (obviously not up by the ears, but generally just in front of a martingale) to support a less than stable body and facilitate grabbing mane. I’d rather someone over-release a bit rather than be too short and hit the horse in the mouth though, personally.
ETA I know endless knows this, I’m just speaking generally
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My trainer often tells me, “Do nothing” in reference to my release. It’s so HARD to do nothing!
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