Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Well, like a lot of things that have to do with riding, there are approximately seventy-three things you have to do right all at once. Also, like other parts of riding, when you do all seventy-three the right way, it’s wonderful!
There are a couple of other things I need to tell you about jumping. No matter how hard you study and how well you do all seventy-three things, you’re going to make mistakes. If you don’t, your pony will make mistakes. Mistakes on ponies usually end up with the rider on the ground. So, first, middle, last, and always: Wear a helmet and have your chin strap fastened. You can wear any kind of helmet you want as long as it has a label on the inside that says it’s been approved by the ASTM/SEI. I just looked that up. What it stands for is American Society for Testing Materials and Safety Equipment Institute. What it means is that it will protect you.
Making mistakes is part of learning. Whenever anyone falls off a pony, people tell them to get back in the saddle. Everybody knows they’re supposed to do that. What everybody doesn’t think about when they tell you that is that it isn’t easy. If you’ve just taken a tumble and if you hurt, it may be that the first thing you want to do is to run away and the last thing you want to do is to get back in the saddle. You might be angry with your pony. You are probably embarrassed. Maybe even ashamed. Forget that stuff. It’s not important. What is important is getting back in the saddle. It helps remind you that it was fun and that you aren’t really hurt. It also reminds your pony that you’re the boss.
And I promise you that once you are back in the saddle, you’ll remember what you did wrong. That’s how I learn from my mistakes. You will, too.
Jasmine’s Guide to Jumping
There are two kinds of jumping competition: hunter and jumper. What makes them different? In hunter jumping, the horse and rider are judged by how well they perform together. It doesn’t matter how fast you go over the fences, but it does matter how you go over them. In other words, the judges are looking for even strides, manners, and jumping style. The course itself is usually very straightforward, but you have to jump the fences in a certain order. If you don’t, you and your horse can be disqualified.
In jumping competitions you have to get over the fences quickly and cleanly—and stay on your horse, of course. Riders and horses jump high, wide fences—sometimes as much as five feet high and six feet wide. And they do it faster than in hunter competitions. To make it even harder, the fences are set up so that horses have to make tight turns to get from one fence to the next. Rider and horse really have to communicate well to get through one of these courses.
In show jumping, the fences are jumped in a certain order. If you don’t jump fences in the right order, you are given penalty points, called faults. If your horse knocks down an obstacle, puts a hoof in the water at a water jump, or doesn’t jump a fence at all, you get more faults. If that isn’t enough to think about, a show jumper also has to complete the jump course in a set time or be assigned time faults. It’s a lot to remember.
Both kinds of jumping competition are really exciting to watch, but I can’t wait until the day when I can take part in a competition myself. I just know that Outlaw and I will make a great jumping team!
About the Author
Bonnie Bryant is the author of over one hundred forty books about horses, including the Saddle Club series and its spinoffs, the Pony Tails series and the Pine Hollow series. Bryant did not know very much about horses before writing the first Saddle Club book in 1986, so she found herself learning right along with the characters she created. She has also written novels and movie novelizations under her married name, Bonnie Bryant Hiller. Bryant was born and raised in New York City, where she still lives today.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1998 by Bonnie Bryant Hiller
Cover design by Connie Gabbert
ISBN: 978-1-4976-5382-5
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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Jasmine and the Jumping Pony (Pony Tails Book 16) Page 5