Advanced Jumping: XC

So a huge part of the fun of XC is the variety of things you get to see:
you've still got your standard verticals (usually stone walls, fencelines, or something like that) and oxers (esp logs. You will get to jump lots and lots and lots of logs throughout your XC career).


banks: up and down, and of course steps -- which are really multiple banks on a related distances. Up banks tend to be very easy. They require a lot of power on the part of the horse, but for the rider all you have to do is keep your leg on and your upper body out of the way and you're good to go. The key to jumping down is balance. Both for the horse AND the rider. Keep in mind also that young horses will tend to launch out as much as down when going off banks for the first time.




table: essentially a solid oxer that's wide and flat.









corner: this is a table that is super wide on one side and very skinny on the other. The trick to riding this is accuracy -- if you drift too far one way the jump becomes impossibly wide, while if you drift too far the other way it invites an easy runout.





ditches: technically the most easy thing out there. It's literally a canter stride. Nothing to it. Except that ditches house horse-eating monsters. Really scary ones. In the wild, a running horse who steps in a ditch is likely to end up dinner for the lion that's chasing them -- do you see now why your horse might not be overly inclined to jump it when they could so easily go around? As with everything else, this should be introduced gradually and in a non-threatening fashion. Make sure your horse doesn't see a ditch for the first time ever in competition. Or you may very well end up in it! Keep your nose behind the pommel coming into this!


coffins: just the name alone inspires fear. Gotta love xc! A coffin is a combo of fence, ditch, fence on related distances, usually with the ditch down lower than the two jumps (so jump at top of the hill, down two strides to a ditch, up two strides to another fence). The fences are also often both skinny. This is all about technical riding. The horse gets to the first fence, sees the ditch on the landing side and quits. Or jumps that fence and goes around the ditch. Or manages the first two but then runs out of the third. The possibilities are endless. The key to riding coffins successfully is to have all the pieces well schooled to begin with. Is the horse cool with ditches? Jumping up and down hill? Holding a line? Triple combinations? When you can do all that, the coffin will be a non issue. Theoretically >;-P These are usually ridden with a nice bouncy reasonably collected canter (recognizable to all eventers as the "coffin canter" -- creatively named eh?). Flying at something this technical at top speed would be a very bad idea.


ski-jumps: look pretty much like, well, ski jumps :) An angled fence at the top of the hill where you land significantly lower than you took off. These are tricky in that you jump the first part like a normal fence and then you have to bring your body back a bit as per a drop fence to survive the landing. If you jump ahead on these you will, at best, land alone. The trick for the horse is regaining their balance after the drop -- esp as you're usually going downhill at that point.



brush fences: these are good gallop fences. They're sloping and are stuffed with brush which sticks out the top. These can be higher than competition height because theoretically you can go through the brush.







water: horses often don't like jumping into water because they can't judge either the depth or the footing for the landing. As with ditches, introduce the concept easily in a confidence building environment so that by the time they actually have to do it in competition it's all fun :) Keep in mind that the horse will feel the drag of the water when they jump in and be prepared for that as you ride it. At the lower levels you usually get to run in and just jump out. And even that can be exciting some days :) Keeping up the impulsion through the water can be more difficult, so remember that any out jump will ride as though it were bigger than it actually is.


Everything you had to consider while walking stadium, also applies to XC:

• terrain is likely to be far more dramatic on XC and also more likely to change. Uphill, downhill (sometimes both in the same combination!), water (be sure you walk *through* the water yourself so you know what the footing is like), changes between dirt, gravel, wood chips, grass, and anything else!
  
• shadows often play far more of a role on XC, especially when jumping in/out of tree-lines or in the woods. Be aware if the shadows will cast a false groundline or make the landing seem inhospitable -- either of those things can lead to a stop at an otherwise easy fence.
  
• jump judges will be found in the vicinity of every fence. The best ones manage to blend in to their surroundings or be far enough away not to matter, but every once in a while they'll be right before or right after a fence and your horse could well be startled by them so make sure you ride accordingly and keep the horse focused on the fence.
  
• cows and other related monsters. Suffice to say if you have a city horse, cows are equivalent of alien beings; and decidedly unfriendly ones at that. Llamas and sheep are also in that category. So if the farmer next door has any of these turned out, consider how your horse may react to jumping next to the fenceline!
  
• fencelines: we spend all our lives teaching horses to stay inside fences, so asking them to jump one often leads to a very confused pony.
  

Now when you're actually out on course, not only do you have to remember where you're going, how you're going to navigate the various terrain and obstacles, but you also have to be aware of pace. Every course will have an optimum time -- you must come in within 30 seconds of that time. If you are more than 30 seconds earlier than the time, every second is a penalty; slower than the time you have a then .4 penalty for each second. (ie, if the stated time is 5 minutes, you must come in somewhere between 4:30 and 5:00. 4:29 will have 1 penalty added, 5:01 will have .4 of a penalty added -- make sense?) And to make this even more challenging at the low levels (@ least in Canada) you cannot wear a watch. So you need to know, by feel, how fast you are going AND how fast you *should* be going :) The easiest way to learn this is to measure off set distances, and time it. Gallop the distance and figure out how fast you were going. (ie if you're aiming for 400 mpm - meters per minute - and it only takes you 45 seconds to go 400m, you're going too fast! Likewise if it takes you 90 seconds to get there, you're too slow.) Adjust until you get the pace you should be doing. Then practice till it feels normal and you can accurately hit the time regularly. Keep in mind when you're riding the actual course though that there will be places that you'll have to slow down, so that time will have to be made up elsewhere. Always remember though that safety outweighs time -- if it's not safe to go fast enough to meet the time, don't.

And now the fun part -- some of the masters from a couple decades ago. First, just watch it and enjoy! Then watch it again. Look for the different types of fences. Watch which fences they take at speed, and which fences they balance and slow down before they jump. Note also how they change their body positions based on whether they're going up or down hill and how they slip and regain their reins as necessary to allow the horse to jump freely.