Improve your jumping position With showjumper Bex Mason

Improve your jumping position

With showjumper Bex Mason

Do you need to hone your jumping position? As Derriere’s showjumping ambassador, I have some tips! It can be tricky to find that perfect leg position, and many of us have our stirrups a little too short - you will need to have quite short stirrups, especially as the fences rise in height, in order to give you the required shock absorption through the ankle joint. Your stirrups need to be short enough so that you can comfortably get your seat out of the saddle, allowing your horse to bascule through your legs. Your heels must stay down, and you need to have a bend in the knee, keeping your lower leg position ‘anchored’.

Practise your position

Because we use our jumping position for only a few seconds at a time, it can be difficult to master. Familiarise yourself by taking your jumping position when schooling on the flat, without jumps. A common mistake is to allow your lower leg to swing too far back, inadvertently encouraging your horse to speed up. Keeping the weight into your stirrups with your heels well down should prevent this happening. Over a fence, really focus on keeping the weight down into your heels, and do consider your upper body - if it is too far forward, e.g. if you lean forward too early, you may get catapulted forward, and your heels will rise. It is usually better from a safety perspective to be behind the movement that in front of it!

When training, I like to use bounce fences, where the horse will not put any strides between each jump, maintaining the jumping position throughout a grid. Start by setting out canter poles and if the distance is correct for you, it will be about the same for bounce jumps. One non-jumping stride is approx 7.5m, and two non-jumping strides approx 10.7m, but this is totally variable! Ask a friend to assist by moving the poles and adjusting them for you, and putting back any knocked poles, or work with your instructor. Try to keep the lower leg still, and think of the hips as acting like a ‘hinge’.

The show jumping position needs to be quite versatile - riders jumping higher showjumping fences are often seen in unusual positions when they ride against the clock, for example leaning to one side of the saddle, or pushing off from the ball of their foot to gain balance if the horse cat leaps. This means they need to have optimum foot stability, as the ankle acts like a spring for the rider’s limb, and must not collapse. Although all riders are different, the predominant style for event riders’ positions over XC fences currently seems to be more ‘chair’ shaped than when tackling arena fences, with the lower leg quite far forward, and the rider’s body weight further back with the heels well down as an ‘anchor’.

Either way, e.g. whatever your discipline, we can all improve our strength and stability through lunge lessons, which helps to mobilise and open the hips. Remember your comfy riding underwear too!

About Bex

Bex has worked for many years breaking in horses and competing at an international level with elite riders such as Tina and Graham Fletcher (GB), Ludo Philleaperts (BEL), Steve Cohan (NZ) and Viki Roycroft (AUS). Bex specialises in producing competition horses. “I find myself expressing love for my Derrieres daily,” Bex says of the underwear range. “I openly discuss the results and versatility of the products, whether it’s to customers at my yard, or fellow competitors at shows; I don’t even realise I’m doing it - these pants change riders’ lives!”