5 Types of Horse Jumps

Show jumping provides horses with opportunities to demonstrate their speed, obedience and agility and riders to reveal their horsemanship and form. Although the decor and jump designs and combinations may vary significantly among competitions, Olympic and other equestrian games have strict jump construction rules. These are a few interesting jump types.

Roll Tops

Consider horse jump roll tops to challenge your riders. The tops of these jumps are shaped like a wide half barrel. These jumps are for experienced riders because they may appear larger to horses. Although some say these jumps may scare horses, they typically result in a good jump.

Water Jumps

Open water jumps test the width of a horse’s jump rather than the height. These obstacles may be marked by fences, but they typically have a rectangle pool of water that the horse must clear. The horse cannot touch the water or pool edge with its foot without affecting the competition score.

Liverpool jumps have a fence positioned before, before and after, or in the middle of a pool of water and are not as wide as the open water variety, but the horse must clear the water and the fences.

Walls

Although they may look like brick walls, wall jumps are made of lightweight materials that are easily knocked down. These are not typically the highest, most difficult obstacles, they affect the horse mentally.

Triples

Triple bar jumps have three poles. Some triples have poles at the same height set next to each other, creating a wide jump, while others have the poles at varying heights, requiring both a wide and high jump.

Combination

When different types of fences are placed close together, they are called combination jumps. These sections only allow one or two strides between obstacles. The rider and horse must be precise and exercise total control to clear these hurdles.

Show or competition jumps may be unique, elaborate and creative, making the event challenging and exciting for both the competitor and spectator.

5 Types of Horse Jumps
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