Wednesday Video from Kentucky Performance Products: Trot, Trot, Trot… JUMP

Jumping from the trot is an important exercise — and harder than it looks. It’s a good test of rideability and a common deal-breaker on handy hunter courses, with horses rushing the last few steps or, alternately, losing engine power which manifests in a weak, puke-y effort.

Trotting jumps goes a long way toward reinforcing the concept of “power, not speed,” with walking jumps being an even more extreme tutorial. Walking jumps is a fairly common practice in show jumping and has been successfully employed by eventers as well. I definitely remember jumping from the walk in a Lucinda Green clinic some years ago and the exercise greatly benefiting my eventer at the time, whose motto when it came to jumping was “LET ME AT ITTTT.”

Of course, we weren’t jumping anything near as large as this:

Another sneak peek…2015 NA 70-Day Stallion Test Champion Silver Creek’s Vindication during training of the 70 Day Stallion Testing. #NAbred #perfect3yroldstallion #fromatrot #SilverCreekInternational #believeinthedream

Posted by Summer Day Stoffel on Sunday, January 24, 2016

And certainly not with this stallion’s degree of overachievement! (If you’re in love, you can read more about Silver Creek’s Vindication here.)

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What are your thoughts on jumping from the walk/trot? Do you incorporate it into your own training program?