Plans for Rail Supports?

Excuse me if I've messed up the terminology. This is for my wife who is training her young mare to jump. The mare has great potential and quite enjoys it.

My wife would like to have a couple of jumps in our pasture so she could practice without having to go down to a local arena and get the jumps out of storage and set it all up.

I'm thinking of some supports that could sit out in the pasture so she wouldn't have to haul them indoors. If I built them fairly strong and painted them they could handle weather. The actual rails would be PVC pipe or something else very light.

I have a few ideas that use up some scrap 2x4 & 4x4 but are there any plans that would get me started? If not plans, just the proper terms for these would help so I could search the web.

Steve

Standards?

I was looking at horse jumps, dressage arenas by Country Horse

The second from the top looks simple. I'm not sure what they are inserting into the posts to hold the rails. I could saw some wood with a round to hold the PVC in place. I'll check out my Home Depot and see if there is anything I can use. If I use wood that sticks out 4" or so it will add some weight. I want the pipe to lightly sit in so a light kick will knock it out but enough support so it doesn't pop out if the support sways a bit.

What heights are used and how do they go up? I mean do I start at 12" and increase in increments of 6" or is there some different method?

Steve

as far as the heights go most start around 18" then go to 2' then 2'3" 2'6" of course ours are home made jumps so you can really do whatever you want. Every show I have been to they stick to heights by 3's so I haven't ridden a course of jumps that were say 2'4" or 3'5" if that makes sence. We got our poles from Home Depot and I got solid wood and they fall when knocked down just fine. If she plans on showing you might have to get some wooden Poles as well incase her horse hits a jump and expects it to all like PVC and suddenly it's wood (could possibly cause a spooke but that doesn't mean it will happen, more or less a precaution). Sorry If I was not much help, I didn't help much with the making of my jumps since I got them as a B-day gift .

There are these things called "jump cups." The look like this:


They can be moved up and down and a pin goes through the holes to keep them in place.

Thanks for all the helpful info. I had been thinking about trying to make jump cups of my own but for $2.49 a pair from horse.com I just ordered a bunch. Even if they don't hold up as well as the expensive ones, I'll have spares.

Also, thanks for the help in setting the heights. As soon as the cup arrive I'll knock out a few sets.

Steve

If they are staying in the pasture I would honestly go with wood. They fall out very easily (unfortunately) and are sturdier. The PVC can shatter if its stepped on and be quite dangerous.

I agree, I'd go with some wood poles over PVC.

What size wooden poles do you use? I know our local ranch supply has 3" round for fencing in 8' lengths and they heft a bit. Of course our jumper was 1100 pounds when we got her and has added lots of muscle since.

Steve