Hello this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and I am here with my good buddy Bailador this morning for our book club. Today I want to talk to you about the book “Training Show Jumpers” by Anthony Paalman.

Anthony Paalman was born in Holland and his education began at the Royal Dutch Calvary School. For many years he was the official national trainer and senior course designer for the Show Jumping Association for Ireland, Mexico and Switzerland. Several world and Olympic riders have been his pupils.

The reason I am showing you this book is because this man takes exactly what we do, he takes classical dressage and applies it to jumping. I have had a few people ask about what sort of devices we use, and we actually don’t use anything except side reins on our horses. Once in a while with very difficult, hollow, and very sway backed horses with an extreme u-neck we will use a shambone. Not a de gogue, don’t confuse the two things. The shambone allows the horse to stretch down and out and doesn’t affect the horse’s movement. A de gogue however has another attachment that breaks the horse’s neck over. So de gogue bad and shambone good!

This book describes how to use the shambone and how to apply this type of training to the world of jumping for all of you who have asked me. You want to think of getting horses to connect over their backs as performance tuning your horse. If the horse isn’t working over it’s back, it will never develop an uphill appearance. The horse must learn how to stretch where the withers actually come up out of the back. We will do another video on this specifically soon! That time that it takes to develop the horse when the withers pulls up out of the back and stretches over the entire length on the topline takes about two years. This develops horses into having an uphill appearance. Not every horse is built uphill so to speak. We can develop any horse uphill, or at least more uphill than it began.

So once again, this book “Training Show Jumpers” by Anthony Paalman can tell you how to apply this classical work over fences. I highly recommend this book! It should be on the shelf of every classical rider, especially if you are interested in applying these things over fences. The only device we even consider using other than side reins is the shambone, which is only used for extremely hollow backed horses and extremely high headed u-necked horses. Check out this book especially if you are a show jumper or if you have an extremely hollow backed horse. The shambone can be especially useful for the thoroughbred type, which are very long in the back and very hollow. In this book he will discuss how to use the shambone, how to adjust it, and how to avoid the dangers that come along with using these types of pieces of equipment.

See you next time at Art2Ride, thank you!

Anthony Paalman Book Club classical foundation dressage San Diego horse training Training Show Jumpers Will Faerber Will Faerber's Book Club