An entire profession is devoted to designing and building jump courses, but now it can be a little easier to create your own show-quality course at home or at your training/boarding barn. Susan Tinder, hunter rider and owner of Tolland Falls, one of Colorado’s premiere equestrian facilities, brings us JUMP COURSE DESIGN MANUAL, a highly illustrated book that explains—with the aid of hundreds of color photos, diagrams, and tables—the jump components used in different horse show divisions, how course designers select the tracks to be followed, and what factors make a course more or less difficult to ride.
“Susan Tinder has put together a very thoughtful and thorough manual to help anyone in all aspects of course design,” says Geoff Teall, trainer and USEF “R” hunter and hunter equitation licensed judge. “I find the sections designed to help people with their gymnastics and course design for training at home especially helpful—we all find ourselves getting a bit stale with our work at home, and this manual will help us come up with fresh ideas. I love that Ms. Tinder covers all aspects of course design, jump construction, and even storage and maintenance of jumps. I look forward to studying her book in more detail, and putting some of her ideas to use in my own training program.”
JUMP COURSE DESIGN MANUAL is essential for anyone who wants to better understand the concepts of course design, and it is an invaluable training aid for those looking for inspiration when schooling or teaching riders at home. The spiral-bound book is available from the TSB online bookstore (books arrive this week!)
