It seems too easy to win rosettes unaff SJ - where's the challenge?

Bronya

New Member
Jan 17, 2006
1,405
0
0
Just wondering - it seems that so long as you've got a horse who will jump the jumps, and who will roughly turn when you want, you can get a rosette. Seems bizarre. I've just been pootling around to get double clears yet seem to come home with a rosette every time. Horse isn't amazing (is quite green SJ and won't take me round, I have to ride properly), I'm certainly not a fantastic rider, and have only really been practising jump-offs for two/three lessons with my instructor. I don't want to progress too quickly up the heights either or what will we have left to aim for in a couple of years time? BSJA is expensive, and she's a v 'average' horse so doubt she'd jump much higher than BN tracks. Pony is the same - took a rider out who had only ridden her a few times and came back with rosettes from every class - simply 'cause she'd gone over all the jumps at a decent canter!

What do others do to find a challenge to aim for? At the moment we're de-spooking them both (got caught out by a Jump 4 Joy filler!), but that seems to be working quite quickly...
 
You should try and qualify for champinships such as david brooms, uk rider's etc. There really good, and trust me the competion can be hard!! Normally the classes are preety big, so the prizes are preety good too :D
 
I had the same feeling here -but with affiliated ( USEA ) eventing. It should really not be possible to get a tiny pony into the US national championships from her first two events, but hey ho. It DOES get more competitive as you go up the levels, so you need to focus on that. There's nothing wrong with encouraging the newbies by giving them lots of little ribbons and prizes. For some of us, who are never going up the levels, it's all we'll ever win, so humour us !
 
If you really dislike winning rosettes so easily then why not bite the bullet and affiliate and go round some more technical, better built tracks and possibly better venues (no idea where you are jumping now) ?

Or go up a level.. or jump at busier show where you might get a double clear but when there are 25 in the J/off it's technical riding and accuracy which wins you your ribbon ?
 
where abouts are you bronya?

It really does depend where you're competing as to the level of horsemanship & the amount of competitors there are in your class. Some places I've been to have small classes of about 10 horses & others have huge classes of well over 50 and every now then as many as 120 (long day - I'd advise against jumping in 3 classes lol)

Does your riding club go in for the championships so you can compete against other riding clubs? Do you go to trailblazers or the like where you can compete for 2nd rounds & then championships?

What heights are you jumping currently?

BSJA is no different in terms of winning - I've been to places where everyone who gets a double clear is in the prize money as well as sometimes people with 4 or even 8 faults in the JO - also been to places where the top 20 have received prizes from a total of 30 or so double clears so really does depend on the situation.

If you want a challenge then pick your venue carefully and I'd advise to affiliate as at least then you know you're going to get a good course with related distances and properly set out courses
 
It depends where you are, I've seen some unaff tracks which are just as hard as BSJA courses, but I've also seen some that are alot easier.
Are you close to Cricklands or somewhere like that? That's quite BSJA like.
 
I had the same feeling here -but with affiliated ( USEA ) eventing. It should really not be possible to get a tiny pony into the US national championships from her first two events, but hey ho. It DOES get more competitive as you go up the levels, so you need to focus on that. There's nothing wrong with encouraging the newbies by giving them lots of little ribbons and prizes. For some of us, who are never going up the levels, it's all we'll ever win, so humour us !

yay :D Me and Phoebs like winind ribbons. 2foot 6 classes all the way. We arn't big jumpers. She gets her legs all confuzzled:rolleyes: but she is proud of herself....she like winning them more than me i think:) So yeah 'lots of little ribbons and prizes' makes it so much more fun than going through allnthe hassle of brushing within an inch of life and loading and dresing nnicely. LOL

sorry for all spelling mistakes but been revising physics all day and just cbb lol.
 
it really depends on the shwo to be honest. yes there are places where as long as you jump clear in a decent canter you will get placed but there are also places where you really have to think about the course. a lot of it depend son the course deisgner and other competitors. you could try entering larger classes at places like cricklands, hall place, crofton manor etc. try doing qualifiers as they will be harder and try the next height up.
 
Come try our courses!

We do our best to make the courses flow, but technical with several questions of both horse and rider. Obviously the smaller classes are easier, but more because the height is lower (and the fillers are removed) than for any other reason.

At the last show, I think we eliminated half the riders in two classes because they all took the wrong fence first - no 7 instead of no 1... :p

We get a lot of the same riders season after season - maybe they don't have transport, or maybe they can't afford to affiliate, but it means they always have something to think about.
 
Personally, I don't think what you bring home always determines how you do. I do the hunter circuit, but I think this will apply to you too.

Don't go by what place you get, try and beat yourself. Make everything you do in the ring correct, make perfect turns and balance your horse perfectly over the little stuff. Don't just go for the blue by racing around unbalanced and half-thought out, enter the ring and make your round methotical, think everythign out, balance your horse and bring him to the fences perfectly, so when you do get out of the classes where you win every time, you'll get out of them with a perfect foundation to build on to do the higher jumps. If you know you don't turn balanced, work on it don't accept the flaw you can fix, so when you get to the higher classes, you can turn perfectly and that will give confidence to your horse to get over the extra height.

Sometimes I put out bad rounds and still place, but I still know my rounds sucked and I could have done better. On the other hand, I've turned out amazing courses before and placed horribly. Now I know jumpers are by time, but what I'm saying is don't go in to win on a half-effort round. Go in and do everything correct then once it's all correct. then build on your time while doign it all correct!!

Gooood luck! :D
 
Last edited:
but you never even get a report back from the judge in hunters :confused: All you ever see is your place ! Heck it's hard enough trying to get your score out of jumpers - where there IS actually a score !
 
but you never even get a report back from the judge in hunters :confused: All you ever see is your place ! Heck it's hard enough trying to get your score out of jumpers - where there IS actually a score !

The way you know how you did is how the course felt, you can feel if you got your spots and balanced your corners. I've came out of the ring and walked up to my trainer and I can tell her every spot I let my horse take a bad step. I know when I've let my horse drop his shoulder through a turn and I know the judge could obviously see it.

It's hard to compare jumpers and hunter scores since in hunter you could place last just becuase the judge hates the way your horse moves.

What I was suggesting was to enter the ring and complete your course correctly, don't just let your horse take unbalanced turns, balance them out. When I watch the jumpers on TV, you can see how balanced ever step their horse takes is, you can tell how the rider is placing their horse's step and not just turning and pointing them at the jumps, so instead of worrying about your rosettes (sp? haha I call them ribbons) worry about the quality of your course. Once the quality is better, you can enter higher classes and execute the course easier since your basics are solid.

Hope this makes sence. =]
 
it makes a lot of sense, I just can never be bothered with hunters, where you don't even get any feedback whatsoever from the judge. It makes you so dependent on employing a trainer everywhere you go. I much prefer how they do it in the Uk - getting feedback from The Judge rather than whoever you can afford to pay to go with you !
 
it makes a lot of sense, I just can never be bothered with hunters, where you don't even get any feedback whatsoever from the judge. It makes you so dependent on employing a trainer everywhere you go. I much prefer how they do it in the Uk - getting feedback from The Judge rather than whoever you can afford to pay to go with you !

Haha yeah I know what you're saying. My barn is only hunters and that's all we do, and I enjoy it. I like to go to the shows and watch the riders and horses I go up against and see how the judge places us, and the flaw to hunters is it's judged strictly on the opinion of the judge. By the end of the show, I can pin what kind of horse that certain judge perfers.

We've had jumpers come to our barn from other countries for vacation and multiple times they've told us "It's like watching paint dry" haha and I might just move up to jumpers later in life but I enjoy the methodical basics to hunters and the flow of the courses, I think it'll be very helpful if I ever move out of hunters.

and it does get fustrating and my instructor and I are pretty close and she's told me so many times that I have the most determination and passion then anyone she's ever met and yet I can't seem to plaace in some shows. It goes a lot by how much money you can put out for a perfect horse that is willing to lope a course for you. but I love the bond and time and effort I've put into my horse and the results I've been able to see =]
 
yessss ... and sometimes you won't pin if a rival trainer has a student in that division, and their trainer brings in more paying students than your trainer does ! It's a pyramid scheme and I won't buy into it. If the riding and training is any good - and it usually is - then a direct test, such as 'whether you got over the jump or not' is far less open to corruption, imho, than a purely subjective judgement, where the judge isn't even prepared to give you a mark, let alone a report ! Just, simply, a ribbon. That's your whole feedback. That's an awful lot of money to spend with no accountability whatsoever.
 
Yeah, that's a downfall that we can't get rid of but that's the thing in the sport you have to accept. Like a referee that calls numerous penalties on one team over another in a soccer or football game, you'll always have a bit of favoritism wherever you go. But you have to know that most of the judges are great people and judge honestly by how the horse goes according to the rules of hunters. They all are trained with eyes to catch flaws along with perfections, so entering the hunter ring, everyone knows it's completely subjective, like a beauty contest. It's just the nature of the sport, and the challenge is to produce courses that are as paced, balanced, and beautiful you can, pleasing as many judges as possible, and sometimes you can't avoid a judge who happens to be very one sided, but that's what everyone accepts entering the hunter ring. Liek I said it's the nature of the sport.
 
I do trailblazers at our local equestrian centre and I don't agree that it is too easy to get placed. Generally the courses are well built and the classes tend to be large. We are up against nippy ponies who can turn on next to nothing and who we are never going to be able to compete with against the clock. The last twice, we have been placed, but I've had to ride my socks off in the jump off to do it. Next time I'm going to start at the next class up to challenge myself a bit more.
If you don't want to jump bigger I agree that maybe you could find a bigger venue where you have to work harder to be placed.
 
From a different perspective, the training classes (unaff equivalent) are huge in New Zealand. Registration is so expensive, that the unaff classes have huge numbers entered, people "having a go" and getting their young horses out before registering. The tracks are still quite technical and offer some good questions for horse and rider.
 
Thanks for all the replies. We go to a variety of venues in the SE (bucks, berks, herts), although can't go too far because don't want to spend a fortune on diesel. Went to Patchetts once and loved it - big classes, scary jump-offs. Unfortunately they do most of their unaff stuff on a Saturday and OH works then (he drives lorry as I'd be lethal!).

My horse has only been going out regularly SJ since end Feb this year, and I don't have much experience before that either. I wanted to take her round for at least six months at a steady pace, just jumping double clears so she learns that jump offs aren't about going as fast as you can, but about listening to the rider. We started off doing 2ft and only managed to do that height for a couple of shows before we were placed 2nd. So up we went to 2ft3 - again a couple of shows and 3rd this time. So we're on 2ft6 now. Problem is there's only 2ft9 and 3ft left. I'm not a pot hunter - makes my skin crawl seeing people who can do a 2ft9 class and win going in for the 2ft3, esp when it is supposed to be restricted to those who haven't won a class before. One of my goals was to beat one of those people - which I did at the last show (felt v good!).

My horse is for keeps, so I won't be getting to a certain level then finding a more talented ride. I prefer to jump on a surface as she's not shod, so will look into championships with that in mind. Anyone know of any centres that do trailblazers in berks/bucks/herts/surrey?
 
newrider.com