Producing Top-Level Jumpers

Patience and preparation are key, but is there a tried-and-tested route to producing a horse to the top level? Sarah Radford asks the experts

- Sarah Radford

There has never been a better time to be a producer of young horses. At the top end of the sport, a burgeoning calendar of five-star shows creates an insatiable demand for big-track jumpers. At the amateur level, horse sales are also booming, with lockdowns prompting unexpectedly time-rich enthusiasts to focus on their passions.

While this may be an attractive market, with big money to be made for the right horse, producing is a long and expensive game that can be riddled with disappointment.

“A lot depends on the end game of the producer – they need to evaluate how good the horse is and what their financial pressure is,” Olympic team gold medallist Peter Charles explains. “You have to learn to judge a horse’s ability to learn and its physical strength.”

Often, the guiding principle in horse production is not so much about knowing what to do, as knowing what not to do.

“The most important thing with a young horse is not to mess them up. You need to protect the horse at all times until it gets to seven or eight,” says Irishman Ger O’Neill of Castlefield Sports Horses, who has an established track record at producing to the top level.

“There are a lot of individual systems, and that’s fine, but once you do too much too early you ruin a horse and many get lost in the system because of it.”

In the UK and Ireland, many adhere to the traditional approach of backing horses as three-year-olds before turning them away. This is followed by further light education and potentially the introduction of competition at four.

West Sussex producer Alex Hempleman follows this approach. But while he may have his four-year-olds “popping a course at home,” he likes to give them lots of breaks and acknowledges that “the best place for a four-year-old is often in the field”.