11/28/2025
đ´ How to Navigate the Showjumping Warm-Up: A Totally Serious, Not-at-All-Sarcastic Guide
1. Enter with Confidence.
Even if you have no idea what youâre doing.
Stride in like you own the place.
Your horse will sense your confidence.
Everyone else will sense that youâre lying.
2. Establish Eye Contact.
With every rider.
Every. Single. Rider.
Because nothing says âI respect your spaceâ like making increasingly frantic eye contact while both of you approach a cross-pole at the same time.
3. Identify the Arena Species.
You will encounter:
The Overachiever: Jumping the oxer thatâs definitely âjust for trainers.â
The Wanderer: Trotting diagonally across everyoneâs lines like a majestic lost sheep.
The Helicopter Parent Trainer: Hovering so intensely you're surprised they donât actually levitate.
The Horse Who Is Definitely Possessed: And his rider, who is reconsidering all their life choices.
4. Memorize the Warm-Up Rules.
The official ones are posted somewhere.
No one follows them.
Instead, you follow the unofficial rules:
Left shoulder to left shoulder⌠unless someone decides theyâre special.
Call your jump⌠loudly⌠repeatedly⌠like an auctioneer.
Donât jump the oxer backwards unless you enjoy being judged by strangers and possibly haunted.
5. The Art of Claiming a Fence.
Step 1: Shout "OXER!" with the energy of a Viking going to battle.
Step 2: Approach your fence.
Step 3: Someone cuts you off anyway.
Step 4: Mutter something polite-ish.
Step 5: Try again.
6. Manage Random Chaos.
At any given moment, at least one of the following will happen:
A pony will bolt.
Someone will drop a whip.
A rider will be having a full therapy session with their trainer in the middle of the track.
A horse will refuse a fence and then do interpretive dance.
A rider will warm up for a 90cm class by jumping 1.40m because âheâs strong today.â
Just breathe. Pretend this is normal. Because it is.
7. Exit Gracefully.
Which means:
Not dying,
Not crashing,
Not accidentally shouting âOXERâ at someone in the parking lot.
Smile like it all went perfectly.
You are a showjumper.
You live for this chaos.
