# Home made cross country jumps



## snooples (10 June 2013)

So looking for ideas as to how anyone has made home made cross country style jumps, cant afford to buy proper ones they are so expensive!


Any pictures you have would be great too


----------



## snooples (10 June 2013)

Anyone!


----------



## PingPongPony (10 June 2013)

I'm on a livery yard so don't have any made but you could go to your local car garage and ask if they have any old tyres they don't want as they have to pay to get rid of them so will most likely be happy to give you some  
Alternatively, look for old garden furniture etc on preloved maybe? 
Something like this? 
http://www.preloved.co.uk/adverts/show/108295548/garden-bench-in-need-of-tlc-wednesfield.html
I'd look for inspiration on google


----------



## LittleRooketRider (10 June 2013)

Logs/logpile

if you have a storage of firewood for winter you can set them up as a jump during summer. or if you have a fallen tree. left over plastic piping...i guess could be found at a dump site. if on the small side you can strap them together.


----------



## LittleRooketRider (10 June 2013)

local farmer may have blue barrels lying around unsused and may be happy to let you have them.


----------



## snooples (10 June 2013)

We actually have some tyres, I just got to get my act together and make a jump with it!

Good idea picking up old furniture second hand, I remember when I was smaller I found an old couch once and jumped that till it fell apart, I even had a bath too 
I used to build so many jumps when I was younger but sadly I cant remember what I did and I dont seem to have the imagination I once had!


----------



## Abacus (10 June 2013)

Please be really careful if using non-fixed cross country jumps. That bench, for example, would tip if knocked. Might be better to try and make something 'working hunter'-like with uprights and poles, brushes and fillers, that would fall like showjumps. 

You can buy unpainted uprights on ebay for not very much, or make your own, then get unpainted poles (countrywide do good cheap ones). As someone else said tyres are good. You can get plank brackets from Robinsons which enable you to make fillers from rectangles of wood and then either paint them or not as you like. And you can sometimes 'find' cones just lying around... ok not a standard xc jump but can be useful as fillers.


----------



## lucindakay (10 June 2013)

my uncle use to make my sister and i ones when we were younger, he used to make tiger traps, they were very minimal and they were only half, so they were right angles, and he used to make them so the back was taller than the base so you could roll it over and it was bigger... they were great and only needed a few planks of wood, they did deteriorate with age but we just fixed them up, we use to put plastic bin bags/logs/tapuli/bushes ect in them to make them 'scary' and he made us 20 or so in all and they were amazing!!!  we could move them as they were soooo light, so we use to put them on hills ect to make drops.
we also used doors and old garden fencing which we trimmed and put against to wooden posts... all very basic but still did the trick, to my sister and i we called it the hurdle field, and being let loose on two rather cheeky 13.1hh ponies it was heaven! i really miss those jumps, we gave them to our local pc so i do hope they're still in use!


----------



## snooples (10 June 2013)

LittleRocketRider said:



			Logs/logpile

if you have a storage of firewood for winter you can set them up as a jump during summer. or if you have a fallen tree. left over plastic piping...i guess could be found at a dump site. if on the small side you can strap them together.

Click to expand...

OMG I have so many fallen trees at the moments but they are all tiny so i thought they would be useless for jumps but I never thoughts of cutting them up and sticking them together as a log pile. Im definately on the slow side these days!

Iv noticced a lot of places using this material in competitions recently, anyone have any idea where I might get it from coz I have no idea what it is!






 177729_10151024414059246_514023101_o by snooples17, on Flickr


----------



## Abacus (10 June 2013)

Also these sort of things might be useful:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/OXFORDWAL...=UK_BOI_ProtectiveGear_RL&hash=item19d28c49da


----------



## snooples (10 June 2013)

And thanks everyone for suggestions Iv lots to work with now 

I was just walking through the field there and someone is cutting hedges and leaving a big pile of bush so might take that for fillers and also found some sticks that are pretty much like showjumping poles except they are still branches, I dont know how they ended up there or who cut them but they look discarded so I cant believe my luck!


----------



## lucindakay (10 June 2013)

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=t...ijump.co.uk%2Fcross_country_jumps.htm;300;227

this is what i mean, so when rolled over it was jumped from the other direction? this made it so it could be made bigger, that may not make a lot of sense but that is what we used and all home made...
 also ours weren't as solid but still lasted years


----------



## nikicb (10 June 2013)

Abacus said:



			Please be really careful if using non-fixed cross country jumps. That bench, for example, would tip if knocked. Might be better to try and make something 'working hunter'-like with uprights and poles, brushes and fillers, that would fall like showjumps. 

You can buy unpainted uprights on ebay for not very much, or make your own, then get unpainted poles (countrywide do good cheap ones). As someone else said tyres are good. You can get plank brackets from Robinsons which enable you to make fillers from rectangles of wood and then either paint them or not as you like. And you can sometimes 'find' cones just lying around... ok not a standard xc jump but can be useful as fillers.
		
Click to expand...

As above - please be careful about fixing them.  There is a lot of information on this facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ban-unfixed-portable-XC-fences/201281593228316?fref=ts

And this thread:

http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=444648


----------



## snooples (10 June 2013)

Abacus said:



			Also these sort of things might be useful:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/OXFORDWAL...=UK_BOI_ProtectiveGear_RL&hash=item19d28c49da

Click to expand...

I actually saw these in hunter trials recently, they are very spooky so would definately be a good thing to practice at home!


----------



## snooples (10 June 2013)

lucindakay said:



https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=t...-country-jumps---tiger-trap-136-p.asp;600;450
this is what i mean, but instead of being a triangle it was as if cut in half, so when rolled over it was jumped from the other direction? that may not make a lot of sense but that is what we used and all home made
		
Click to expand...

These look easy enough to make, i should be able to get my hands on a couple of old wooden pallets which I think if i broke up would be perfect to make these jumps out of!



nikicb said:



			As above - please be careful about fixing them.  There is a lot of information on this facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ban-unfixed-portable-XC-fences/201281593228316?fref=ts

And this thread:

http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=444648

Click to expand...

Thanks for that niki, Iv actually been following the thread and facebook page for a while so its something i will take note of when building!


----------



## nikicb (10 June 2013)

snooples said:



			Thanks for that niki, Iv actually been following the thread and facebook page for a while so its something i will take note of when building!
		
Click to expand...

Great!   Have fun being creative! x


----------



## ester (10 June 2013)

The pic is of twin wall drainage pipe
http://www.ebay.co.uk/bhp/twin-wall-drainage-pipe?_trksid=p2045573.m2388

we have tyres on a pole with 2 cavaletti style wings which we made, old jam factory green barrels on their sides. a 'ditch' made of 2 giant black seed trays from the garden centre..


----------



## mrsh2010 (10 June 2013)

Here's selection of the jumps my dad's made me, there are some XC fences in there too  Mainly made from recycled pallets


----------



## ester (10 June 2013)

he looks handy to know you're dad


----------



## mrsh2010 (10 June 2013)

ester said:



			he looks handy to know you're dad 

Click to expand...

Shame I'm a lover of dressage


----------



## snooples (10 June 2013)

mrmsh2010 I am SO jealous, no one in my family would ever do that for me, even when I was 13 I had to head around with the sledgehammer and build the fencing myself!

Time to give up the dressage and get jumping if you have that equipment at your disposal!!


----------



## mrsh2010 (10 June 2013)

snooples said:



			mrsh2010 I am SO jealous, no one in my family would ever do that for me, even when I was 13 I had to head around with the sledgehammer and build the fencing myself!

Time to give up the dressage and get jumping if you have that equipment at your disposal!!
		
Click to expand...

Problem is he learnt to search ebay, and if he sees something he like he builds it. I was joking when Badminton was on that I liked the jewellery boxes, got one of those almost finished in my parent's garden too

I do pop a few fences  

The other thing is all our XC are 1-2ft, we kept them small, as they can be fillers too.

But without making jumps, we've got a trailer load of tyres for free, they made good jumps, and workmen were throwing out the black tubing, they fit perfectly over our normal trotting poles.


----------



## FinnishLapphund (10 June 2013)

I'm sorry, I haven't got any pictures and I only used it as an inspiration for some dog jumps in my garden about 20 years ago, so the jumps doesn't exists any more, but I still think that the short book/booklet Making your own jumps from Threshold picture guides is a good place to start, the first half is about "normal" jumps and the last half is about cross country jumps.  

I did a search and found this thread from another forum with some photos of homemade cross country jumps, Fast, easy, recylced homemade cross country jumps, please note, I don't think all of them looks that safe, but maybe it is the homemade look that confuses me, anyhow, I'm no expert so you have to judge the safety aspects yourself.

Jumps from the thread above that showed up on my google image search:
























I found this book, but I don't know if it is good or not A basic guide to building cross country fences. 

I found this thread without photos on another forum Building a cross country course?

Some short suggestions with four photos about making your own cross country jumps.


Some other cross country jumps from google image search (again please note, I'm no expert, you have to judge the safety aspects yourself):


















This one looks as if you could make something similar from wooden pallets
























I included this because perhaps the basic idea could be used somehow 






Maybe ending with the best suggestion? A homemade stand in cube-ish form without poles






Suggestion for how to place poles, but there must be ways to be able to make it look more natural and cross country like, e.g. by using tree branches instead of poles, not painting it white etc.?


----------



## PingPongPony (10 June 2013)

that bench I posted up, could easily be made more safe, by unscrewing the top 5 planks, popping shallow plastic sj cups into the holes and cutting the edges of the planks to hang in the plastic cups, so they would fall if knocked and it would maybe cost you £5 more quid? Would also mean you could have the bench higher or lower  
There's tons of stuff everywhere that you could use as XC jumps, some are ready to jump, some need a bit of adjusting to make them safer, but if you just put your mind to it, you can make a lot of jumps!


----------

