To find information on a thoroughbred horse’s pedigree, you can contact the Jockey Club. This organization can help you trace your horse’s background, provided the name the horse uses now is its registered name. (Also, check to see if your horse has a tatoo underneath its top lip. A Jockey Club tatoo will be present on any horse trained at a track, even if the horse didn’t race. This tatoo can be used to find out information on an animal even if you don’t know its registered name.)

If this fails, try contacting the United States Equestrian Federation to see if the animal were ever recorded there. If so, the USEF should be able to tell you the horse’s sire and dam and the horse’s registered name. The address, phone, and fax are as follows:

United States Equestrian Federation
4047 Iron Works Parkway
Lexington, KY 40511
Phone: 859-258-2472
Fax: 859-231-6662

In an over-fences class, you should get into two-point position during the initial circle and stay there throughout the entire course. Concentrate on pressing the horse forward with your legs, rather than using your upper-body as a motivator. This way, you can stay still in your upper-body, making the performance look effortless, while using your legs to do all the work.

Be sure not to actively close your upper-body at take-off, but instead, let the horse’s jumping effort—that is, the arch of its back in the air, or “bascule”—close your hip angle for you. Also, if you’re riding a tense horse, don’t let the horse’s anxiety cause you to close your upper-body ahead of the motion, for this will actually make the horse more nervous and quick. Just stay where you are around the rest of the course, letting the horse’s jumping effort close your hip angle ever so slightly in the air.

The stillness of the rider’s upper body is very important to the accuracy of the take-off spot. If a rider notices a few strides from a fence that the take-off is going to be too long, he may lean forward, thinking that this helps the horse lengthen its stride. In truth, only the rider’s eyes have gained ground, so that it appears the horse has lengthened, although the animal is still on the same length stride and is not gaining any more ground than it was before. To get a true lengthening of stride, the rider should keep his body raised into two-point position at the same angle it was at the beginning of the course, then use his legs as a driving aid to lengthen the horse’s stride, only closing the body if he perceives that he must in order to stay in balance with the horse as the stride lengthens.

If you maintain a still upper body in two-point position, you’ll be able to gauge the effectiveness of your legs as a driving aid. If you find that the horse is not responsive enough to the leg aid, add a little spur on the approach. If that is not sufficient, tap the horse on its barrel with your crop on the approach. Once the horse learns that the sequence is leg, spur, stick, it will respond properly to the use of the leg only, knowing that it will be punished if it does not.

Occasionally, I’ll come across a rider who is afraid of jumping fences, particularly large ones. When someone asks me about dealing with this fear, I have to be honest and say that I believe people should do what makes them happy, rather than feel that they have to overcome their worries and fears to prove to themselves or others that they are “up to par.”

Life is short, and going through it being a harsh judge of yourself will only make you unhappy. Having been offered this wonderful gift of life, it seems that the goal should be to enjoy it every day, concentrating on what you love to do and can do well, rather than setting goals for yourself that involve overcoming fear. Not everyone is comfortable with skydiving, bungy-jumping, racing cars, etc., but this doesn’t mean that he or she is an inferior person for avoiding activities that cause anxiety and fear.

Surmounting difficult odds may be admirable during unavoidable, life-threatening situations, but there is no reason to make life an uphill climb when you have the choice to do otherwise. Although I’m not a psychologist, I think that when a frightened person is determined to jump, it is not so much linked to feelings about the sport as to the issue of self-esteem.

It must be remembered that excellence can be achieved at any level. If you don’t feel comfortable jumping, but you are excellent at flatwork, then you should be proud of your achievement; or if you spend your entire showing career jumping on the three-foot level, but you do it very well, then you should be pleased with this accomplishment rather than being embarrassed that you aren’t moving up. My advice to those who struggle with fear is to love yourself for what you are so that you’ll not only enjoy riding more, but also find that your life is filled with greater joy and meaning, rather than with fear and disappointment.