Irish Show jumper, Andrew Bourns of Bourns Sport Horses, shows us his favorite cavaletti exercise using DJC aluminum cavaletti, and tells us why he chooses to furnish his Wellington, FL ring with Dalman Jump Co. products.
What you need
To complete this jumping exercise, you will need four cavaletti. You can also set ground rails using round or square poles instead.
Setting up the cavaletti exercise
Bourns sets up this jumping exercise as a large circle, with the cavalettis on one side of the circle to form a semi-circle. It is set as one cavaletti that bends to a bounce and then bends to another cavaletti. Between the bounce and the cavalettis on each side the distance is 18 meters. Watch the demonstration video to get a better idea of how to set up the cavalettis and execute it
The goal
Like many cavaletti exercises, the goal of is to improve the horse’s rideability and consistency over jumps.
When starting this exercise, Bourns starts by doing a four stride to the bounce to a four. Then he will go through it again adding in a stride in each line before and after the bounce– five to bounce to five. Finally, he will do a four stride to the bounce to a six stride. Although this is the pattern he follows, you can change up the strides in each go to fit your personal goals.
If you want to make the cavaletti exercise simpler, take out the bounce in the middle and replace it with a single. You can also lengthen the distance between the cavaletti to simplify it further.
There are many ways to execute this exercise, like not always doing it in a circle, but here he wants to ask his horse to do the same thing over and over again to practice consistency and build the trust between the horse and rider. Bourns says it also makes horses more ambidextrous so the horse can be the same off both leads.
Why Andrew Bourns uses Dalman Jump Co. products in his arena
Bourns is a long time customer of Dalman Jump Co. and has created a beautiful ring with our jumps. His favorite are the custom logo jumps that showcase his brand logo in a unique fashion. “I feel like our brand is very well represented,” he says.
“They are all made with functionality in mind. The company is run and the jumps are designed by horse people so the jumps are made for horse people, so they are made to be very usable and practical,” he says.
Contact Dalman Jump Co. today to build your own custom jumps and build a schooling jump course!