is that Rodney?
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Yes! Schooling Idle Dice at his Hilltop Farm, which is about twenty minutes down the road from where I live. I had this poster on my wall all through my childhood in the 70’s.
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I had plans to marry him, when I was 12, just sayin’
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Who didn’t?!? Lol.
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Yesssssssssssssss! 
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Me, too, but Idle Dice definitely had to come along as his dowry! 
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Yes, I knew him, and of course had a crush.
That photo is clearly competent, effective riding.
But I was never taught (or even heard) that doing a crest release was a desirable, actual technique. Blame my low level riding, my lack of instruction, or lack of contact with the horse world. But I really didn’t know.
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I judge in SC a LOT! I live in SC. I would be so thrilled if ANYONE used a proper crest release. It isn’t taught most places well here. I just see a lot of hands above the crest or no release at all…sigh
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All I can say is that at that one show I watched back in the '90s, the riders were consistent enough with it to make me wonder, is it a regional thing?
Rodney who?
Jenkins
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I also don’t understand the lack of empathy for a lovely horse trying to jump without the ability to use his head and neck.
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I remember riding in a pickup truck with Rodney one afternoon. We were going about 45 minutes west to look at a horse. I was probably 14 or 15, which would have been in '66 or '67 or so. The third person in the cab was an older girl, blonde, and, as I remember, quite sophisticated. I was mousy, skinny and quite shy.
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Another crest release…but note that’s a CORRECT long crest release, knuckles firmly planted on each side of crest. Its not the butt in air hands waving above the crest or jammed in the gullet so often see in novice riders who lack strong fundamentals and the strength to use them. Often lack good instruction to
I was taught long, short and medium crest releases plus following hand 
. Did I execute them well…um…
…not so much. My trainers preferred the crest releases to protect my saintly and patient horses from my distinctly Ammy skills and (lack of) strength due to career demands. If I was putting in the saddle time, I was pretty decent.
But I have some pictures galloping sone jumps out over terrain with a lovely following hand without even being aware I was using it…it just happened because everything else was right and the sloping terrain got my attention.
Anyway…don’t blame the crest release itself for what you saw.
Oh…its a valid point that Performance Hunters today jump much harder with more bascule and tighter knees and a rider trying to use a following hand would end up with their chin on the crest. Plus some Pros develop an odd style or try to exaggerate by overdoing a bit…long as the horses do well. NBD.
Yes, they and all the novices would fall off on the Hunt field…but they never ride there or even out of a ring. Things change.
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Hey, while we’re talking jumping. I’ve always wondered why, in big-big jumpers, some riders – particularly men – have butts way in the air, their upper bodies to one side of the horse’s neck of the other, and they’re not merely glancing down – their face is pointing to the ground. It’s everything we’re taught not to do. I’m not criticizing, merely curious.
I’m thinking there must be a physics-related reason for this? The size or shape of the jump demands this posture to shift weight to the best place for the horse to clear? But why is the rider’s face pointed down rather than to the next fence? Are the riders checking for clearance? Is it impossible to tilt the neck up in this super-forward position?
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Oh, I’m not blaming the crest release itself for anything. I think it’s a great idea to keep rider stable and protect horse’s mouth. As for other uses, I don’t know enough about it to say. All I really know about it, I got from George Morris’ columns. The lessons I was taking in those days were Centered Riding and dressage. No jumping, except on my own, no shows and very little contact with the horse world.
What I saw that weekend in 1994 or 1995 was, what looked like, anyway, riders who were unstable enough or unsure of themselves enough to need or want to hold on with their hands over jumps. In my experience, that was an intermediate move, at best, and this was a high-enough level show that I was surprised to see it.
If I had any idea that the crest release was a recognized technique, clearly and deliberately taught, I would probably have thought that the riders I saw had correct positions, instead of assuming that they were doing a version of grabbing mane when they were worried or in trouble.
Just my ignorance showing.
Not sure your reply should have been to me. I wasn’t critical of the crest release or riders who use it.
I was never taught the crest release as a specific thing, but getting to a following hand was taught as a (long) progression. It started with trotting poles, getting up into “jumping position” and grabbing mane a couple of strides before you got to the poles then maintaining it until a stride or two past the poles.
The better you got at jumping, the less mane grabbing there was and the more independent your hands became.
I learned to ride at a hunt club and hunters were shown on the outside course, so perhaps there was more emphasis there on progressing to a more independent following hand than there might have been in other places.
Today, coming back to jumping as an old lady, I’m perfectly happy to putter along with a crest release and a mane grab. 
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a mans center of gravity is different than ours, and also…big jump! If you have ever jumped a course 1.30 or better, on a hard jumping horse, you do what you need to to stay on and, at the same time, not inhibit or interfere with the jump
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I think this point is very valid. On a whole, TBs have a smoother, “flatter” jumping style, not that they don’t have scope, but that they have a different arc and power off differently. WBs typically have more of a lofty/pushy jump and can make a following hand a little harder.
I have also always found the auto release to be easiest when at a clipping pace, out of the ring. Especially in the hunt field, most horses are not going to jump “hard” when they are hunting because that takes a lot of work, which makes the auto release much easier. That is more my experience and feelings, I could be off.
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