For those of you who have seen our horse racing videos on the internet list, but would like something a little bit different, this is just the thing for you. Horse jumping is a much diversified practice, in that it is involved in a number of working exercises, sports, as well as shows involving horses.
If you would like to see videos of jump racing horses, we recommend you go back through the link above. On the three channels showcased on the previous list, there are horse jumping videos. The only problem is that you have to sift through all the standard racing videos to get to them.
So, without further ado, let’s talk a little bit about what horse jumping is, and how it came to be integrated into equestrianism and horsemanship in general. After this small section, we will be looking at three major YouTube channels where one can see horse jumping videos.
Brief History of Horse Jumping
Although horses were not initially used specifically for jumping, the practice has become a standard in most sports having to do with horses. Needless to say, the most well-known of these sports is show jumping. Show jumping has become so well-known especially due to its introduction in the Olympic Games (of which we will talk about a bit later).
However, besides show jumping, there are a few other sports which involve quite a lot of horse jumping. These are fox hunting, eventing, and steeplechasing.
Still, show jumping ends up being the most difficult for the horse, as it implies multiple jumps of different heights within a very small amount of time. Training for show jumping is the most difficult of all processes that involve the dressage of horses. In order for a jump to be successful, the horse needs to perfectly jump over the obstacles, without touching it.
Wheee! Jumping horses sure are fun to watch – but there’s much more to the jump than you may think.
A horse jump involves five stages. The approach represents the slight lean that the horse goes into right before a jump. Then. Take-off begins. This starts with the first foot that leaves the ground and ends when the last foot has left the ground. Suspension, or flight, is the exact moment in which a horse is above the obstacle. When landing, the horse uses the trailing foreleg as a point of balance, and then proceeds to advance with the lead foreleg. Although many neglect the last stage, recovery is extremely important as the high pressure put on the horse’s legs may cause it to overreact.
The record for a horse-jump was set way back in 1949 by the show horse Huaso. Huaso and its rider managed to jump an 8 foot 1 inch fence.
Now that the basics of horse jumping have been settled, let’s look at what horse jumping videos on the internet we have found.
Free Riding NZ – Alycia Burton Horse Jumping Videos
Although this isn’t technically a channel made specifically for jumping, there is quite a lot of jumping happening in Alycia Burton’s videos. As she says on her about page, Alycia is a full time horse trainer and free rider.
Alycia’s story started probably around 2010, when she opened her current YouTube channel. We don’t really know how much time has passed since she has updated this about page, since not many people actually visit that section of a YouTube account. Suffice to say that in the time since her latest update, her total views have jumped – much like a horse – from 3.6 million hits to 10.9 million hits. Alycia also has 77 thousand subscribers, assuring that she has an active fan-base.
Her videos are extremely useful if you want some training material for you and your horsey. If you want to train your horse how to jump, there is no better place to get advice from. If you would like to see other horse training videos, we have a selection of those over here.
You can find Alycia’s channel by clicking here. Also, here’s a sample video that we have selected:
USEF Network Horse Jumping Videos
This next channel is a little bit more specialized. The USEF Network, if you don’t know by now, is a TV channel that focuses on equestrianism. However, they don’t usually cover horse racing, which is technically a part of equestrianism in general. USEF choose to focus more on show jumping competitions.
So much so that their channel is full of horse jumping videos. The provide coverage of horse jumping competitions and also have interviews and post and pre competition discussions. Started back in 20111, the channel has quickly risen to 6.6 million views and 19 thousand subscribers.
If you would like to see a pretty amazing video from them, we recommend you check out this video right here, which features the final of the World Freestyle Reining championship. Laura Sumrall, the winner of said competition managed to impress the jury by riding her horse in sync to the now-famous song Let it Go.
However, I do recall we were here for horse jumping videos. Therefore, you can access the channel’s page by clicking here, and be sure to check out the sample video below.
Olympics Horse Jumping Videos
If you haven’t forgotten that you were in an article before you clicked play on the video above (which is marvelously commentated and may steal you away), we still have one more channel to talk about. This is one channel you’re bound not to forget, and it’s a particularly interesting one to keep in mind for next year when the summer Olympics at Rio will be the main attraction of the season.
The Olympics YouTube channel is one of the first viral channels to ever exist. It was born on a cold day, on the 10th of January 2006. That’s less than one year after YouTube actually started being a thing. It seems that the people from the Olympic Committee knew exactly what they were doing. Today, the Olympics YouTube channel has 414.9 million views, and a staggering 1.1 million subscribers.
However, the Olympics channel does not show only equestrian competitions (wouldn’t that be great?). Therefore, if you want to find videos of horses jumping on their channel, you have to manually search for them. Still, that shouldn’t be too hard. Just type horse and Olympics in the search bar, and the finals of the 2012 show jumping Olympic competition will pop up.
Incidentally, that’s exactly the video we’ve chosen to end this list with. Just click here, since the channel has prohibited embedding, sadly.
If you want to check out their channel, and maybe even subscribe (there are a lot of sports updates over there that you might be interested in) you can click the link over here.
Image source: wikimedia.org