How High is too high?? please read!

My friend has this beautiful thoroughbred 16.3 hands. Today she was jumping him an he was gorgeous! I thin she jumped him 3' and he cleared it. Well she said by next week she would reach the top of my standard jumps which is like 3'9 maybe 4. She has never jumped that high but the horse has. Im afraid she will over jump him. I was worried about it when she started warming him up over the 3' foot!

Also my horse is a quarter horse cross maybe a appendix 15.3. He is fat now due to three weeks off with an abscess. He is ridable again yay. I last started jumping him at 2'3! He has never jumped before and that was his first vertical! I was going to jump 2'6 before he got lame at show. Well my friend starting point is as high as I want to jump with him. I saw a few cracks on his front hooves which aren't much but the fairer is coming in two weeks. My goal is to jump 2'9 or 3 and I'm done. I think jumping any higher is not fair to my horse and I won't be schooling that high so why bother. I will admit I was envious of my friends horse and it got me thinking of mine. Here is some pictures of him at his mostly fit stage. PLEASE READ CAPTIONS UNDERNEATH :)



My release is not good I know. He looks really stockey in this picture due to the angle. This jump is 2'. I have jumped him 2'3




Conformation :)



My face is funky :p again sucky release


another conformation shot. At his first show. The chain is bad...it was not on him the whole time. I took it off right after the picture was taken lol.











So what do you thin of my horse? And opinion on my friends horse. Im not trying to stop her im just scared that something bad could happen to her horse! He landed hard today when she was jumping and that was warmup!

I like your horse. He's a cutie. The only thing I would mention is I was always taught to never tie with a stud chain over the nose as if they pull back it could get ugly.

As far as the friend, it depends on her and the horse and how athletic/experienced they are. 3' warm ups and jumping 4' aren't a huge deal to someone who has the proper training and knows what they're doing. To me they're terrifying... I stick to about 2'6.
If she's just trying to see how high she can jump him, that's probably not good if she's never done it herself and doesn't have someone working with her.

Your horse is cute. I agree, please do not tie using the stud chain like that. Very scary.

Your problem is not so much your release but your lack of a base of support. You are jumping ahead and your leg has slid back, it is hard to not have your elbows sticking out when all that other stuff is going wrong. You might want to stick to smaller jumps until you get a better base of support.


As far as your friends horse goes, I am not sure there is much you can do.

Yes my position is not the best. He over jumped and I was not prepared since we jump smaller jumps her gets lazy as seen in the picture below..



Even here my leg swung back....:/ but I was not all over his neck. I was a little bit more prepared. I do a lot better in my lessons since im prone to snapping up and jumping ahead. May I mind you I never get left behind due to this haha :p but my horse is a little green and I was used to lesson horses that held their own over jumps. I get a feeling that I have to lift up my horse but my trainer says I don't have too. Another flaw. Why do jumping positions have to be so complicated lol if any of you have had the flaws that I have, how did you over come them and stop doing them? Thanks :)

And as far as my friend goes, she said she has jumped to 3'6. Her horse is 10 years and was gelded at seven so he is a hyper little horse! But one of th jumps he landed hard and stopped like a reiner. That was at 3'. I just don't want him or her to get lame just to see how high he can jump. He is definetly not a hunter due to his crazy reactions with jumps but he could be eq. Or jumpers. I just want either of them to get hurt! I know it is none of my business but I don't think it is worth having your horse be lame for a year because he was jumped to high and much. How high would you jump your horses and how often do you jump? What is a ok limit? And is it true is you jump your horse too high or too much when he is younger he is more prone to arthritis? Myth or fact? Thanks :) I just wanna make sure she wont kill herself!

A horse only has so much jump in them. You over jump them, they will break down. There are studdies that have been done discussing this very topic, and due to the shock and the impact that the horses front legs incur when they land off of a fence, breaks down their joints slowly.

Every fence they have to push off of, breaks down their hocks slowly.

I jump only once a week, but that's my personal choice.

Height means diddly squat to me personally. There are people who jump "big" who shouldn't be, and there are people who wont jump over 2'9" who are impecable riders.

It isn't the height of the fence that matters, it is the quallity of the fence that does.

My trainer said almost this exact thing at my last lesson. I agree compleatly though, I would rather look great over my little 2'3-2'6 lol then look awful and be dangerous over 3' and so on.

I agree with this^^...

I totally agree with your posts. For one I could never jump that high! I would feel unsecure!

I think if you and your horse are ready to progress to a higher height, then go for it. But by judging by your pictures, I don't think you are ready to jumper higher just yet. You should be 100% comfortable and confident in yourself and your horse over small fences first.

As for your friend, if she is ready to jump 4 feet then fine, it doesn't matter if her horse has done it before, if her form is not correct and if she is unsure or nervous, or anything then she shouldn't not be jumping 4 feet. If anything goes wrong then she could ruin that horse. Also she could damage her confidence and the horse's confidence.