Building Your Own Jumps and Jump Courses at Home

By Lisa Goodwin

Imagine having a complete course of jumps set up and ready for you to use whenever you want, without spending a small fortune. And wouldn’t it be great if you had some starter courses that you could refer to, and set up?
Creating your own horse jumps and courses is easy with this information filled manual. With hundreds of full color photos, diagrams, and tables, Building Your Own Jumps and Jump Courses At Home shows step by step detailed instructions of how to tackle building your very own jumps. There are also course diagrams that connect with each chapter, breaking down how to use the jumps and equipment that you create.
This book will show you how to build and finish:
• Jump standards
• Gates
• Planks
• Brush Boxes
• Walls
• Flower Boxes
• 8’ and 10’ jump rails
Everything you will need to get started making a complete course for using at your home, or barn. There are also extras, showing you how to complete projects you can use for your tack room too.
And once you have mastered the art of building jumps, then courses throughout the book will guide you to using those jumps, and even has a 6 week plan for conditioning your horse.
With full color photographs throughout this book to make the steps easy to understand, and complete.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lisa Goodwin
• Release date: Jul 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781513071749

Book preview

Building Your Own Jumps and Jump Courses At Home

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Building Your Own Jumps and Jump Courses At Home

How to build and set your own horse jump courses for schooling and training at home

By

Lisa Goodwin

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Copyright 2015 by Lisa Goodwin

All rights reserved

All photographs and illustrations by Lisa Goodwin unless otherwise noted.

Book design by Lisa Goodwin

Cover design by Dale Goodwin

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any

form or by any means; electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise,

except as permitted by the author or publisher.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER OF LIABILTY

The publisher and author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or

completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without

limitation warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by

sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for

every situation.

The author and publisher shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with

respect to loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information

contained within this work. While the book is as accurate as the author can make it, there may be

errors omissions, and inaccuracies.

Equine riding and training can be a hazardous activity that may subject participants to possible

serious injury. The author and the publisher will not assume any liability for your activities. This

book provides general information, instruction, and techniques that may not be suitable for

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everyone. Qualified personal instruction is suggested to best understand the ideas that are

presented throughout this book.

Table of Contents

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1. Introduction

2. Getting Started

3. The Riding Area

4. What You Will Need

5. Trot and Canter Poles

6. Adding Standards

7. Adding Fillers

8. Adding Rails

9. Creating Courses at Home

10. Course of Three Jumps

11. Courses of Five Jumps

12. Creating a Course with 7 Jumps or More

13. Projects for the Tack Room

14. What Comes Next

15. Resources

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Horses lend us the wings we lack.

~Author Unknown

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About This Book

This book has been in my head for the past 10 years, and it has finally managed to break out, and

become a reality. I have been working with horses for a very long time. I have competed in local

shows, and always aspired to move up to the larger shows, but have not been able to make the leap

due to something else always coming up, or life’s plans did not allow that to happen for me, until a

few years ago.

And the biggest lesson I had learned from attending A rated hunter/jumper shows is that I didn’t

really know what I thought I knew about horse shows.

Looking back, an easy way to define a horse show is it’s a test of what you have been working on at

home, and the jump course is the exam you have been studying for. Part of this is because of the

trainers that I had worked with in the past. They didn’t explain to me how to count strides, or even

what a bending line was. Perhaps they thought I knew, and I never thought to ask. But I wanted to

have a very clear understanding of why the jumps were set up the way they were, and why.

I began to make my own jumps, and then perfected the process, and started a business building

horse jumps for those, like me, who could not afford to purchase the premade sets from large

companies. However, I still did not fully understand why jumps were set up the way they were, and

how to make a jump more appealing to the horse so it would be easier for him to approach and go

over it. However, with a lot of research and some classes, I finally understand what I wish I knew

when I began showing horses, and building courses.

And in order to be better at showing my horse, I wanted to understand why courses are built as they

are.

I will show you different ways to set up a course of jumps you have constructed, and laying out an

easy to use course which you will get the most use of. After reading and studying this book you will

be able to make your own horse jumps, lay out different exercises and courses, and have a better

understanding of the terms that relate to jumping. Hopefully you will be able to put to use the

information you will find in this book. I wish you luck, and congratulate you on taking the first steps

into creating a jumps and items you can use while working with your horses!

~ Lisa Goodwin

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Chapter 1

Introduction

If you have aspirations of jumping, creating your own courses, or building horse jumps, this book

has been designed with you in mind. In my version of a perfect world, horse jumps are easily

affordable, and the ideas of different courses are plentiful. However, as with many things related to

horses, riding and showing, this is not an inexpensive hobby.

And if you have ever tried to set up a few jumps at home, you understand that it can be challenging.

Creating a course of jumps out of a pile of poles and sticks of wood can be difficult if you don’t really understand how far apart the jumps should be, or why fillers are important to your jump course.

Also, you really don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on creating the perfect schooling course

either. I will show you how you can build different jumps and complete courses at home from

$220.00 to $900.00.

I have been around horses my entire life, and have always been drawn to jumping. For much of my

horse life, I have had to board my horses. This was really nice, because if I wanted to do flatwork or

jump, there was always a riding arena with good footing, and sometimes even jumps that I could pop

over.

But once I was lucky enough to move to a home where I could keep my horses, I had to plan for

everything. If I wanted a riding arena, I had to make it. The same thing for jumps.

I didn’t understand how expensive they were, until I decided I wanted to buy some for myself. Talk

about sticker shock! I was trying to figure out how I would be able to afford to buy a complete set of

jumps. I even considered getting a second job in order to buy them, but then realized I could

probably make them myself.

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It wasn’t easy, and I can tell you the first could of jumps I made were not really that great. I used

nails for my construction, and didn’t really know how to use a drill. I did not even know how to

change the bit out of the drill. I had no idea of how to do spacing for the holes, or how to keep them

even.

But with a lot of practice, and having built around 2800 jumps, I think it is safe to say I am an

authority figure when it comes to jump building, at least for building jumps to be used at home.

Making huge pillars and wine bottles for standards really isn’t realistic for using at home, and I will

save that for the large companies that build jumps for the horse shows.

You may be wondering why this should matter to you, and it is because since you have purchased

this book, you will not have to go through all of the brain damage of trying to figure out how to build

a jump, I have already done that for you.

Throughout this book you will also there are also different ideas of courses you will be able to set up

at home. They will not only give you different ideas for schooling, but should help to improve your

jumping.

The ultimate goal of this book is to give you complete ideas of how to create different jumps, and for

you to have a complete understanding of jumps, and how to use them at home.

Also as the title mentions, you will find a lot of information on building jumps. I will then take it

even further. After each section of jump building, it will correspond with different courses and

exercises for you to use. Within every chapter of this book you will learn how to build your jumps,

along with the skills you will need in order to set up a complete course of jumps at home.

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You can use the information as training aids, or to get you ready to go to a horse show, and use the

knowledge as well as the increased skills you have learned while creating your own set of jumps.

I try to explain each segment in great detail, so you will be able to follow along easily while creating your jumps and different training exercises along the way.

If you take the time to go through all of the exercises both in the saddle, and in the wood working

shop, you will have a very good working knowledge of why jump courses are set up the way they are,

along with the aids to create different jumps you are able to use in a practical application at your

own home.

In a perfect world, we would all have trainers or coaches that we could work with whenever we

wanted. We would always have someone there to help guide us on our journey as we advance.

Unfortunately, this is not always the case for a variety of different reasons.

Whatever your reasons are for purchasing this book, foremost, I want to say thank you! But more

importantly, I hope you will find the information within these pages to be valuable, and something

that you can come back to and use throughout your time of working with horses.

Whenever you will be building your jumps, always make sure to take the proper precautions. You

will want to have a well-lit work area. Always think of safety first, and keep yourself protected when

working with power tools. You will find a little exclamation point prior to any directions that have

you working with tools.

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Please take the time to read the instructions completely, and have the necessary safety items on

hand before you begin.

Also, before every horse training exercise, you will see the same exclamation point that will ask you

to make sure you have taken the proper safety precautions before you ride your horse.

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Whenever you will be practicing your jumping exercises, it is recommended to have someone with

you in case an emergency comes up. So please, keep yourself and your horse safe whenever riding.

You will also find a lot of pictures that go along with either an example of a step on building a jump,

or a course or examples of jumping. All of the photography has been completed by myself, or if I was

the one in the picture, then my second shooter….aka my husband, Dale graciously offered his help

with the images.

The reason here are so many photos is to show you how something should, or can look. For some,

seeing what is supposed to be happening makes the learning process easier. This is how I learn best,

and I am hopeful the images will help you in your learning as well. I also wanted to show you what

homemade jumps can look like.

For example, the photo above is me. No, I don’t have fancy riding clothes on, and no I do not have

the most expensive saddle or tack. But I am safe, and although not typical photo you will see in this

book, I just wanted to show you everyone is different. As long as you are safe, and have the desire to

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