Brought to you by The Plaidcast
At the highest levels of show jumping, making a course more difficult doesn’t necessarily mean making the fences bigger. For FEI Level 4 Course Designer Guilherme Jorge, some of the most effective questions are created through details that spectators may barely notice like the length of a pole, the color of a rail, or where a delicate vertical appears in relation to the rest of the track.
“It’s very important that you have, as a course designer, the consciousness that even [when] you are building the biggest Grand Prix of your calendar year, you have to think that the horses are going to have to face many other top-level competitions,” Jorge said on episode 480 of The Plaidcast.
That philosophy shaped the $1,000,000 Rolex US Equestrian Open Grand Prix at Wellington International, where Jorge needed to challenge some of the best horse-and-rider combinations in the world without simply demanding greater physical effort.
Every Jump Has to Count
Jorge had already designed his Grand Prix course when he watched the week’s 1.55-meter qualifier. Twenty-five of 60 combinations jumped clear. That result told him just how strong the field was. “I would need to make pretty much every jump count,” he said.
Rather than dramatically increasing fence dimensions or creating more demanding distances, Jorge adjusted some of his materials. The goal was to make certain jumps require more precision and carefulness while keeping the physical demand appropriate for the horses.
One tool course designers can use is simply changing the width of the materials.
In North America, Jorge explained, riders commonly see 12-foot poles. A course designer can instead use 10-foot poles and matching materials, creating a narrower-looking fence that requires a more accurate approach.
Then there are true skinny fences, where the jumping effort may be only eight feet wide. “The rider needs to be, and the horse needs to be, very accurate to jump,” Jorge said.
In Wellington, he placed an eight-foot-front oxer at fence three following a turn that required riders to establish an exact line. But because the fence already demanded considerable accuracy, Jorge intentionally avoided making it excessively wide. “We also try not to ask too many questions in the same jump,” he said.
That balance is central to good course design. A fence can test scope, carefulness, accuracy, or rideability, but asking for all of those things at their maximum level at once can make the question unnecessarily demanding.
Even Color Can Change the Question
The construction of the fence is only part of the equation. Its appearance can also influence how the horse reads it. Jorge explained that although horses do not perceive color exactly as humans do, they can distinguish differences in brightness and contrast. Course designers can use those visual differences to subtly change the character of a fence.
Striped poles tend to give horses plenty of visual reference. Solid-colored poles can create a more delicate question. Horizontally striped or finely striped rails can affect the way a horse perceives the fence and require additional carefulness.
For the Rolex US Equestrian Open Grand Prix, Jorge used a substantial number of solid-colored poles as well as several horizontally striped rails. “These things, they make the jump harder without asking more physical effort from the horses,” he said.
Difficulty Can Be Subtle
Course designers also use placement to influence how a fence rides. A relatively straightforward jump can become more influential when it follows a turn that requires accuracy or appears at a point in the course where the horse must quickly change its balance. Conversely, a physically demanding fence may be given a more generous approach so the horse has a fair opportunity to jump it well.
Jorge’s philosophy is not to combine every possible difficulty into the same obstacle. “If I’m going to make a jump a very scopey jump, I’m going to give the horses more chance to jump it,” he explained.
That means difficulty can be distributed across the course rather than concentrated in one intimidating effort. One fence may ask for scope. Another may ask for carefulness. Another may reward an accurate track.
“If you use the material in a way that you ask for more carefulness, you don’t have to ask the horses to jump more,” Jorge said. “They just need to jump it more precisely.”
That approach allows course designers to challenge elite combinations while keeping the horse at the center of the equation.
To hear the full conversation with Guilherme Jorge, listen to episode 480 of The Plaidcast. Subscribe and follow The Plaidcast on your favorite podcast platform for more conversations from throughout our industry.
