Its silly to buy an expencive set of jumps when you can...
You can make the jumps your self! It sound crazy but it saves you a LOT of money! All you need for the jump holders are either milk crates or anything that you would say was 'safe'(if your not sure then ask your instructor or look up on the internet) and for the poles all you need is a long thin branch that is reasonably straight and then you can buy pole pockets which are plastic colourful pockets which you can just pull over your poles instead of wasting time painting them and there very cheap and make your do-it-yourself jumps look like professional show-jumps! (if your confused then think of the pole as as a pillow and the pole pocket as a pillow case, and a pillow looks white and boring with no pillow case so you can brighten it up by pulling on a pillow case but in this case...a pole pocket!) Hope that helped...!
I've built some jumps at Brad's yard using cones, tyres and logs. They're really nice, and Rosie jumps them well! They have pole pockets there, but they make a lot of noise in the wind - and it's been VERY windy down here of late!
We have made a few jumps before, just for schooling, out of PVC pipes, some random wood (for the standards) we had left over from our addition to the boarding barn, but you can also use logs, barrels (make sure they are filled with something VERY heavy), etc. I think it's more fun (make it a little weekend event) than going out and spending a TON of money on premade jumps.
The inners from rolls of carpet : you can get plastic or thick cardboard. They usually come with plugs in the end so you can fill with sand and seal for extra weight if you need to. They come in 4m lengths so you can cut to size. You can also make cups out of them by cutting a small length in half. The attach to the buckets, wings etc
What I'm going to do is get some big plastic drums (44 gallon) and punch holes in them for the jumping cups to sit in. The holes go down in a vertical line so that you can adjust the size of it. I live near a wood processing/timber factory so can ask for the cheap off cuts for poles, but I also live near a forets, so can go in and take the decent bits from off the ground! Can't wait!! Only problem at the moment is that I can's really ride in my paddock till the ground gets a bit firmer!!
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Incredibly proud owner of two lovely appaloosas: Cheeky and Jazz.
creative??? haha...im the creative one in the family and good thing because there is no way anyone in my family could even help me buy ONE set of standards lol... all my jumps consist of boxes, chairs, logs, water buckets, little play toys that are safe and have no shape edges! lol and for my poles, i have sticks that i took all branches and sanded them smooth myself lol. i have made some really nice jumps before too!
I use milk crates for my wings and also as practice XC jumps. they are so versitile. Uprights spreads and triple bars whatever. Also the blocks you get are £20 brand new. Milk crates are £6 brand new and are just a little smaller.
For pole i use the stands from house (for sale) signs. a lot are dumped where i live. they are strong and very long., plus i get them free.
I used to buy the drain pipes for houses and use those as poles! they come in different thickness's and are really cheap to buy! you can also decorate them with bandage tape in different colours! we used cones for the wings as well as barrels, milk crates buckets, tyres and anything else we could find!
a word of warning ,the plastic pipes can be dangerous of they split due to the jagged edges! I have half given up on home made jumps and gone out and buoght some proper wings and poles! i am in the process of painting them! Has anyone got any wicked design ideas?
I also use the big upright barrels and line them up in a row, then infront i put ones on their side for a bit of a spread. Iam now looking for some kind of water tray! Any ideas?
I see your point about the plastic poles splitting but Ive been using them for 2yrs with no problems (before he had been diagnosed with navicular). Im quite lucky that Rio loves to jump and has never hit a pole hard enough to do any damage!
i use tyres and my dad has built me some wooden jumps too! i just use pieces of wood flat wood! but... my dad has bought me some fencing poles and he has cut the pointed bit of adn i am painting them! they are really smart!
In the past I have used bamboo poles - they are light enough to lug around and have nicely spaced markings so you can paint sections! If you have a handy plantation, get someone to cut them - 5 or 6 inch diameter ones are good.
Tyres hung on a pole between two oil drums make a nice solid jump.
Bales of straw built in to walls (small bales).
Make your own fillers using miniature evergreen trees in pots - they last year round and most horses won't eat them! Handy at Xmas too.
You can make jump wings by securing sturdy posts to upright oildrums. Drill the post beforehand so you can put the jump cups in.
Look out for people cutting down their trees - ask for lengths of chopped up tree trunk. Short sections of about 1 foot are easier to move around than one great trunk, and this gives you more options in designing a jump.
For disposable (!) jumps try painting large cardboard cartons. You can weigh them down with something inside. Fun for a day or two until it rains - no storage worries! And good for training your horse to be bold.
I have built many home-made jumps myself. If anyone has access (dad or a friend) to a circular saw, really professional poles can be made from a 12' long pressure treated 4" x 4" . If these are fed through the saw, cutting the corners off, leaving a hexagonal pole ready for painting.
3" to 4" PVC pipe can also work, but may be a bit light encouraging knock downs. If you fill the pipe with sand to make it heavier and cap the ends, it will make a decent pole. PVC tape is also useful for applying stripes.
Free standing fillers are also easy to build and can make up good practice jumps for novice horses and riders, without the expense and difficulty of building actual wings. Again, using 4 x 4 pressure treated wood (or else it will rot in no time), one 8' length and some boards will make a single jump. If it is cut into 2' sections, two for the uprights and two for the feet, someone needs to drill holes so that a 'foot' can be bolted (carriage bolts) through the upright, forming a 'T' shape. Then, taking 10 or 12 foot boards, these are screwed onto the uprights so that the feet are now perpendicular to the boards. This is a cheap and easy free-standing jump.
we cut a bit of wood into 2 and then put them in to a cross and nail then. they will then swivel and you can make the jump small and big. you do 2 of theses and put a peice of wood down the middle and cover it in a pole cover or get a group of mates and paint them thats fun on a nice summers day after riding or something.
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