dd has entered her first SJ comp on Sat, it's 2'3" but we only have one jump in the paddock

[nomnomdeplume]

I just hope she gets him round. She's never even ridden him over a double. They've jumped much higher but not a course. I am really nervous for her but don't want to crush her spirit!

Best of luck to her.We had the same problem and had to improvise jumps with lengths of drainpipe ect.

Is there a clear round jumping class first thing? If so use that as a practise.

If not try and build a double and or a spread in the collecting ring if you get there early enough.

Suggest that she treats this first outing as a practise for the future as well. Try to encourage her to go for a rhythmic double clear rather than cutting corners for a quicker time.

Good luck and let us know how she gets on.

We're going to make our own. We deconstructed an old rotten wing we were given, and copied it. The wood costs a nominal amount. You need a few fixings, because bolts are better than screws, but still not much compared to how much they cost new! And you can tailor them to your own size/width! Our local CWG sells 9ft wooden poles for £8.
A lick of paint and there you are. EBay is a good source of inspiration. (and cheap jump cups!)
I know this won't help you now, of course...
Could you improvise now? Hunt out anything you have to jump over!

use anything you can think of to construct jumps, overturned water containers, your feed dustbins, one end on your fence, the other on ...... , anything you can reasonably rest a pole on, even if it has to be a crosspole double it's a better start than where you are now.

I have been known....and I can't believe I'm going to admit this....to creep out after dark and nick the odd traffic cone, SAFELY! Obviously not from busy roads or big holes, but stacked along side the finished roadworks awaiting collection.
Traditional jump cups fit over the top and sit quite nicely.
They aren't particularly big jumps, but good for practicing courses.

Grab anything and everything.

Not really the weather...but I used to collect cardboard boxes to build jumps. Homebase is handy!

Dustbins / fence posts/ buckets/ cones/ tyres/ barrels/ drainpipes/ old furniture

I literally took anything and everything.

And the plus was my girl thought nothing of 'boring' showjumps in the end and cleared even 'scary' fillers . They were nothing compared to my inventions

Can you scrape enough together for 3 jumps? Then you could plan a route to go over them twice to make a course if 6.

Good luck!

She jumps anythign she can out hacking, and she's had jumping lessons. She's not nervous, but knows nothing about strides and impulsion etc. oh well, hopefully with this weather it will be cancelled

The other thing she will need is a good memory - make sure she walks the course and learns it. One tip is to try and tag on with someone who sounds like they know what they're doing and stalk them as they walk the course. I've done it with xc and it works a treat if you're not 100% sure what you're doing.

If it all goes horribly wrong (which it won't....) she could ask if she can jump round at the end (hors concours).

Best of luck, I'm sure she'll fly round!

Look at it as a training session, set yourself an objective ie get round in 1 piece, jump the double.

The only way to learn to jump courses is by going out & jumping courses, having jumps at home won't give the experience of seeing different jumps, noises of crowd, warming up, different surfaces.

Don't set expectations of getting a rosette, just set an objective you want to achieve, go and enjoy & have fun.

And at 2ft 3 i assume it's unaffiliated you don't need to know about strides and just try to keep a nice steady rhythm.

We used to collect large, but not too thick, branches and bit of tree, to make brush fences. Also any large branches to use as poles, balanced on anything we could find, buckets, cones (keep an eye out in hedges when you are driving, we have found several this way) and milk crates.

Definately do a clear round course first if you can and when you walk the course, don't just walk it - run it, although you can't go a fast as the horse, the course looks very different when you come at it at speed!

How did it go OP?