Being keenly aware of your horse’s strengths and limitations is key to your success in any jump-off. Does he have a lot of gallop but struggles to navigate tight turns? Or maybe he can turn on a dime, but tends to run out of gas and gets careless with rails? In either scenario, knowing your horse’s abilities and how he responds against the clock will guide your plan in a tiebreaker.

In part of her video series on EQUESTRIAN+, Holly Hugo-Vidal offers advice on how to successfully ride a tight jump-off turn after a fence by focusing on your position, canter quality and stride length, approach and subtle cues in the air. She also explains the importance of centering your horse’s arc over a fence when navigating tight turns and how it can affect your related distances.

Give her tips a try on your next jump-off!

Jump-Off Turn 1

“Here we’re practicing a right turn with a tighter landing area, coming off the left lead, so the rider has much less space to influence the right lead. This is turn that you might see in a jump-off. You’re going to see the rider looking to the right by just turning her head—not  leaning—and then using her right rein in the air to ask her horse to land on the right lead to make this tight turn.

“Ideally, you don’t want a long distance over the first fence because that will make your turn afterward all the more difficult. So approach the first jump in a balanced canter to set your horse up for a quiet distance.

“With a quieter distance going in, the rider can make the turn more easily without fighting her horse and she actually turned sooner the second time. If she allowed him to get too fast and got a long distance, she’s not going to be able to make the turn.

“Even in a jump-off when you’re galloping through a turn, the rider still needs to sit up and take a little feel of her horse and have him come back to her so he can jump off his hindquarters. Then, she can just look to the inside and feel like she has all the time in the world to make that right turn.”

Jump-Off Turn 2

“Here we’re practicing influencing the right lead again over a vertical with a tight turn to an oxer. The first time around, the rider tried to turn too early in the air and it affected his jump. You can see it took a little bit of his jump away.

“You want your horse to get as much of his body as possible over the jump before starting to turn him. Try to keep his balance the same over the jump so he doesn’t feel any movement from you.

“Notice that her seat is out of the saddle in a galloping position—the American jumping style. This time she looks up early, softens her hands, gets off his back and gallops down to the oxer. She could afford the nice long distance to that one because here we’re picturing her going through the timers on the other side.”

Center Your Horse’s Arc Over Fences

“When considering related distances between fences, you have to consider the horse’s arc over the jump. The arc he makes should be perfectly centered over the jump. Some riders don’t understand this, but it’s crucial the arc is always centered over the jump and not shifted this way or the other.

“If the jump is higher, the arc will be larger but it should still be centered. And your takeoff is going to be a little farther away by nature.

“If you get a long distance and your horse lands a little flat and stretched out, it will likely make the related distance ride short. If your horse takes off too close to the jump, he’s going to land shallow and you’re going to have to move up to compensate.

“Oftentimes I see beginner or even intermediate riders who seem to think an awkwardly deep distance is acceptable. And I don’t know if that’s explained to them or not because I see them make the same mistake over and over instead of trying to give the horse a little more room to leave the ground.

“I have an amateur who’s a very good rider and appears to have a good eye, but sometimes she gets a little too deep. So I asked her the other day after she met a deep distance if she recognized it early, and if she did why didn’t she sit up and close her hand to make it more balanced and her answer was interesting.

“She told me she always sees her distances five strides away but she doesn’t think about what the distance is going to be. So, I encouraged her to step up her level of rider sophistication by recognizing that she was not only five strides away, but what kind of five? Five long? Five short? Or just right? That way, she could make it work out much more smoothly.”

For more of Holly Hugo-Vidal’s top training tips on EQUESTRIAN+, click here.

About Holly Hugo-Vidal

Based out of Scott and Nancy Boggio’s Arbor Hill Farm in Canton, Georgia, Holly Hugo-Vidal maintains a busy schedule with her junior and adult riders as well as giving clinics and judging. With her former husband, Victor Hugo-Vidal, she ran the successful show barn, Cedar Lodge Farm, in Stamford, Connecticut, learning from his ability to help anyone with a desire to accomplish his or her goals. Her next mentor was show jumper Rodney Jenkins, who provided her with lessons in reading horses and creating in them a desire to please. She is the author of the book Build Confidence Over Fences!