Home-made Jumps?

This is the best thread. I was looking for some ideas to make some jump standards and poles with my friend and came across some great ideas. CM, I LOVE your jump standards so much Im getting my boyfriend to help me make some :P
Not so sure I could make poles easily, but we have plenty of straight tree branches that could suffice!

Goosey you just get pine fence poles and paint them :)

I have some lovely jump wings that we bought for a bargain price (5 pairs with poles for $500 and they are solid pine, there is probably $2500 worth of wood in them), they will last for years and years and they're great to have. I plan on making some standards one of these days so that I can move my jumps around a little easier, the ones I have are more "set and forget" so although they are great they're not very flexible. With standards I can get some plywood and cut out designs to make some more "scary" jumps. I want to do butterflies, fairies, a horse design like CM's, and I'll probably make a wall eventually. Oh and a pair of elephants or giraffes!

Edit; two of my poles are BIG branches cut to length but they are very much set and forget because they weigh a ton. I have a pair of natural pine jump wings that make a very nice "natural" jump.

Straw bales do a really good job. As do rain barrels (plastic is safer) on their sides. Flower planters that you can buy at hardware stores like home depot are easily filled with fake flowers from the dollar store. Depending on your level of jumping, picnic tables do pretty good for a wide spread, although this is more of a cross country type jump. The thing to remember about poles is horses tend to knock PVC poles and send them flying much easier than wooden poles. PVC poles brake easier and tend to break into sharp spears. Also I've had horses learn that PVC doesn't take much to knock them down and so they got into the habit of hanging a leg ever so slightly and knocking the pole down. Wooden poles will leave a sting if the horse taps it and most horses will learn not to be so careless with their legs. PVC is cheaper and easier to move, but wood has its pros as well. The most important thing to always remember is that jumping over professionally made jumps is dangerous and things can go horribly wrong jumping anything...so its best to think about the safety of a jump before you send a horse over it.