I work a full time job, and make decent money to support my horse habit. My goal is to show grand prix jumpers at some point and am somewhat lost on where to go. I take lessons, and ride 3’ jumpers on my mustang currently. I think we could get to 4’6 eventually. Where would I look for a horse with the grand prix attributes? What shows should I be going to? Do I need certain points or shows to even register for a GP event?
Thanks!
Pretty sure this is a troll post, but I’ll answer anyway :winkgrin:
You should be riding 4-5 horses a day 6x a week and riding with a trainer who has horses who show at that level.
Have that trainer find you a GP horse, you’ll need a few 100 thousand to spend… actually you may need more than 1 horse considering you need to be riding 4-5 a day and the trainer may not want you on their horses until you’ve progressed enough… so buy 4 and you’ll have your mustang that makes 5… so a few million to spend may be about right.
Then trainer can start showing your new GP horses and you can learn more about the sport and if you have the right horses and trainer, in 3-4 years you may be able to do a GP!
Also you Basically need to quit your job yet still make millions, the amount of time you need to spend riding and showing wouldn’t be realistic with a regular job.
I’ve never met a mustang that jumps 1.2 m courses. Lofty goals for your boy. Go to the shows with a grand prix in your area, see which of the riders you want to emulate, find out if those riders are trainers themselves or who their trainers are. Go ride with the trainer you pick out and come up with a plan.
That was very helpful, great idea! thank you 
I’ve only seen mustangs jump up to 4’6, so I am not sure if 5’3 is in her future.
If nothing else, both USE and FEI have rule books. Reading those is going to be your best starting point.
You might have a movie deal in the making, even if you just get her close. Hollywood would be all over “The Little Mustang that Could” given the current emotions surrounding the BLM. Your character would have to be something dramatic (maybe it already is). My science job is suddenly boring. Thanks for nothing, FlyingMustang!
Start buying Powerball tickets or go work on yachts or something where there are wealthy singles looking for partners.
haha this is awesome!
I don’t agree with some of the above posters, while it’s all too easy to get caught up in unrealistic expectations and not expect a lot of hard work, I think sometimes we don’t look at certain things in riding objectively enough. For all we knew Snowman was a Mustang…as long as the horse has the scope and talent and rider has the guts and experience, price tag doesn’t really matter.
We shouldn’t ever tell someone to not go follow their dream because the don’t have enough “experience”…how do you think you get experience? Sitting at home moaning about how you don’t have experience?
Not saying this particular Mustang is a Grand Prix candidate it could or could not be, maybe it’s the next Mustang or TB or warmblood that comes along. What exactly is needed to get to Grand Prix? A horse and rider able to make it safely and effectively over 1.4 meter plus course. What is needed to do that? A rider with enough experience to know how to not get or be in trouble and a horse with enough scope and heart, and when that combo happens to come together is a myriad of forms you get success.
My point is, there is no set formula. I’m a strong believer in doing what you can every single day towards success. If you want to go ride Grand Prix then start setting smart goals, start thinking objectively, and start doing what you can every single day!
Not an actual round but Mule jumping 5 feet (thought it might be helpful to show another non-traditional equine)
http://thehorseaholic.com/video-this-mule-can-jump-over-5-feet/
Also, I swear there was a Mule doing actual Grand Prixs in the 60s or 70s? Anybody know who that was?
Not Grand Prix but up to 1.2, this trainer does some cool things with Mustangs…Eventing, Dressage, Jumping 4 feet etcetera…
http://www.horsechannel.com/horse-breeds/training-mustangs-for-english-sports.aspx
Brego the Spanish Mustang
https://www.facebook.com/Brego.SMR3449/
I’m almost positive there are other examples I’ve heard of, Google is just not cooperating right now.
I don’t know that this necessarily applies to being able to do the GP at some of the more local-oriented A’s. You didn’t say you wanted to win at the big national shows… I definitely see non-millionaire folk in the GP at some of our less prestigious shows here.
Read Super Shorty’s blog: http://www.chronofhorse.com/author/blogger-emily-pope/publisher/1/type/article Rather than millions of dollars, you see there an abundance of hard work, talent, community support, and some lucky access to the right horses, training, and shows. As I recall I think PNWJumper has done the full time job/GP rider thing as well. I don’t think anybody is going to say it’s cheap, easy, or accessible to everyone, but I don’t see that level reserved for the trust fund club.
True, my post was definitely meant to be slightly sarcastic, though it does have some truth to it - especially to safetly jump around the 1.45, you need 1) the right horse 2) the right training and 3) time and money to work on and pay for your training, showing, and the horse that’s athletic enough to safetly (key word) jump around that height - yes there are the “one in a million, diamonds in the rough” but if those were easy to come across, we’d all have them
There are a few factors to consider. If you do not have experiencing jumping higher, then it helps a lot to be able to move up on a schoolmaster type who is forgiving of green rider mistakes / scopey enough to get out of some difficult situations. These horses cost a lot of money. Even the ones who can’t do GP height but can get you closer than where you are now or that your mustang can get to. To bring along your own project, say an OTTB, you need to have experience over some bigger tracks to guide them along. Green rider + green horse is not the best way to try to move up to that level. There is, of course, the risk with buying greener that the horse ultimately won’t get there physically or mentally. All of it translates to you needing to be prepared that it will be expensive most likely, unless you have some significant experience you haven’t mentioned.
Go to some of the bigger shows and try to talk to some of the GP riders. I am sure some would love to share their experiences. I know many little horses that can jump the bigger fences. Kudos to you for dreaming big, I wish I had the gusto and courage to want to try this, it too has been a dream to just jump one big course. maybe one day I will. Some working students “inherit” an older GP horse that they can learn on…
I’m also not sure if this is a joke post or not, but I will answer truthfully. I think there are quite a few paths to GP. There is the obvious path, where you are a trust fund kid and buy 3-4 GP horses competing at the level already and between that and your trainer you learn. There is the path where you buy an older school master who maybe only has a year or two left in the 1.40s and you learn from him. There is the working student path. There is the path where you buy a nice prospect and pay a trainer to either move him up the levels for you or you move up together.
There are a lot of online COTH articles that talk about how people have gotten where they are. Everyone has a different story. Some people buy their way into the sport, some people work their butts off to get there, and some people are so lucky they stumble into it and find out after the fact they bought a gem of a horse who will take them there.
If if you are serious about this I suggest showing your mustang in the jumpers as much as possible to get some experience under your belt and then go from there. A great trainer can do wonders too.
You spend a lot of time in the saddle, go to a lot of shows, gain solid experience move up levels when you have a horse that can do it - maybe the mustang maybe not. The main thing is having the horse or horses that have the scope and talent to move up to the GP level (and many do not) and then the rider has to have the skill and the knowledge to get the horse around a GP course.
As discussed in a post I started a week or so back, Grand Prix is a very flexible term. It just means there is prize money attached. One of our local shows did a $5000? Miniprix at the 3 foot level.
The real question is about height of jumps and circuit.
And not just whether your horse can heave himself over one jump at that height but whethet he can do a course at that height. The jumps get more technical as well as higher.
OP are you currently showing and winning or placing at the 3 foot level? And on what circuit, IE schooling shows or A level or what?
If you are doing well at the 3 foot level the question to ask your coach is how to move up in height.
But really it is typical for most people to learn to jump on a horse that starts to get maxed out over 3 feet. When they’ve topped out at that, they go looking to buy a higher level horse with the help of their trainer.
Around here the lower level horse would typically cost $5000 to $10,000 and the next level could be up to $50,000, if you are after a confirmed competitive horse. Of course talented riders and trainers do also start with free or low priced OTTBs or other young horses.
OP, these are questions you should ask your trainer. If your trainer won’t have this conversation with you, is it because trainer feels you are miles away from moving up or is trainer not qualified enough to know? In that case you need to approach a better training barn to ask.
I should add though that in sports as in arts, talent counts for a lot and the pool of competitors narrows a lot ad you go up.
If I asked what is the realistic process to become a pro basketball player or a pop music superstar, I think we’d all recognize that raw talent visible at an early age, a strong work ethic, and a bit of luck all play into it.
This is different from success in the professions where the answer is go to law school or med school and do OK.
Everybody that isn’t actually involved with higher level Jumpers gets hung up on height and seems to think if a horse can jump that high, it has the scope for GP.
Not true.
Lots of horses can get over a few big fences. Very very few can extend themeselves over 15’ of open water, compress their stride on landing for a short bending line to a 4’9" vertical, continue on a longer bending line to a triple vertical-oxer-oxer combination set up to 4’9" high 5’ wide for a long 3 strides, short 2 strides, long 3 strides then gallop around the corner to a 5’3" brick wall and the timers. Thats as the last 6 jumping efforts in the course after the horse has already negotiated 10 or more previous jumps, is tired and might not be listening. That’s what the course designer is testiing, not just height.
Any rider/horse must extend and compress the stride to negotiate the track between the fences. That’s the trick. You can compress any horses stride to 10-11 feet with enough training but you cannot extend that stride beyond what the horse’s size, hip and shoulder structure will physically allow them to do. That’s what can limit smaller horses.
Back when, GP courses were more open and gallopy, fences were big but solid, favored a more TB style. Today, courses are much more technical, the combinations are trickier and fences highly stylized with all sorts of decorator themes… they aren’t as inviting as a big post and rail and rarely approached off a long gallop so the horse can figure it out. More like coming around a corner with 6 strides to the bicycle fence. Many say some of yesterday’s star GP horses would not excell on today’s courses.
The track a rider wanting to persue that goal today needs to follow needs to get them out of the 3’ , Ch/Ad level and into the higher Ch/ Ad where the courses get more technical, combinations more challenging and time allowed tighter. From there to lower Jr/AO which just increases that, then High Jr/AO which is, basically, a GP course only slightly less of everything then a regular GP. And the open water starts to show up in the Jr/AO…that open water keeps a lot of horses from getting any further up the track. They hate it, most barns don’t have it to school over.
Its possible but, realistically, that’s what a rider needs to figure on progressing through to develop themselves to ride at the GP level. How they accomplish that varies. IMO things that were possible in the past are much less likely with today’s big business environment and skyrocketing costs. BNT barns that do Jumpers do sometimes offer WS type positions but those riders need to be Jr/AO levels or a superstar at 3’9" or a Big Eq Medal finalist with heavy Jumper exposure.
You either need an insane amount of money or a fluke of a horse. A friend of mine went to the World Equestrian Games on a Clydesdale cross.
http://kithoughton.zenfolio.com/p369918650/h7B418044#h7b418044
Chris Chugg has had success with Thoroughbreds off the track.
http://chuggyequestrian.com/
"The next big thing for my career was a little horse off the track by the name of Mr Currency. The time from between buying him and competing him at the World Cup final in Gotenburg 1991 was three years and he was a nine year old. After that he then went on to compete at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and finished on 4 faults in the Nations Cup.
WS Scandal was my next international horse, she was also an ex-racehorse. A black thoroughbred mare standing at 16hh, owned and started by Peter Wagner. She was a top competitor, and was the horse that secured Australia’s team spot for the Atlanta Olympics as a 7 year old by winning and placing in Grand prixs on the 1995 European Tour."
I also think that if your goal is to ride at a high level in any discipline but especially in jumpers, you need to feel free to ride any horse that is going to take you there. That might mean leasing, or being a working student so you get access to good quality horses, or catch riding. You might be riding multiple horses at one show, or riding different horses throughout the year as you move up levels or one horse gets injured and takes a break.
This is a different goal from saying: here is my one beloved horse, and I am going to see how far I can get with him. That’s a totally worthy goal, of course, and one that focuses on your relationship with your own horse. But I don’t think it necessarily works if your overall goal is to advance up the sport in a timely manner. If your horse is learning as you learn, then you need to ride a fully trained horse to get the feel of higher, more complicated, work. If your horse is a school master to a certain level, you won’t be able to ride him past that. And if somehow you have a fully trained Grand Prix horse dropped in your lap, you won’t be able to ride him around the two foot nines while you learn the basics. And if you have one horse and he gets injured or just needs a rest, you are effectively grounded.
So I think the people who make the fastest progress have flexible access to multiple high quality horses of appropriate level. I would imagine this would happen most affordably for someone in something like a working student position who was already a good enough rider to be given sales horses to ride by the trainer. Buying a series of horses as you move up is also an option, but a very expensive one.
These riders are from a different continent and all but one above results are from 1987 to the early 1990s years ago before the sport changed to what it is today. Mr Chugg is a lifelong horseman, born into a training family, whose most recent successes from 2010 were on a horse he specifically started as a 4 year old and always intended for elite level showjumping.
Sounds like he is a great horseman but OP has considerably more challenges ahead and less resources. I think there might be a handful of TBs still out in GP level competition or horses under 16h but the vast majority today in 2017 are bigger, purpose bred, started from scratch and professionally handled. From what’s been posted on here, its way cheaper to keep horses and show in Australia, like half what it costs here. We have more shows, and they cost quite a bit more.
Its just not like it used to be where you could develop a decent horse for a reasonable amount and make your way up the competition ladder.
ETA…one if the links listed uothread contains a reference to 1.2m. GPs are 1.4 to 1.5m.
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