What are the most common mistakes when starting riders over fences?

The most common mistakes when starting riders over fences reflect the same impatience and technical errors that characterize other stages of the learning process, compounded by the specific anxieties and physical reactions that jumping introduces for many beginning riders. Jumping before the rider's flat position is sufficiently developed is the most consequential early mistake — a rider who needs to grip for security at the sitting trot has not yet developed the position independence that jumping requires, and jumping without this independence produces the classic beginning jumping faults of the gripping knee, the swinging lower leg, and the use of the reins for balance that are much harder to correct once the habit of jumping with these compensations is established. Allowing the rider to jump too many fences in a session before confidence and position are established creates the anxiety and fatigue that make subsequent sessions more difficult rather than building the confidence that makes them easier. Not addressing the looking-down fault from the very beginning of jumping education allows one of the most consequential position faults to become established — a rider who develops the habit of looking at every fence will have this fault persist through many levels of development, while a rider who learns from the first fence to look ahead develops the spatial awareness that makes effective course riding natural. Progressing to course jumping before single fence position and basic distance awareness are established leaves the rider without the specific competencies that course riding requires, and the complexity of a course overwhelms a rider who has not yet made these specific skills automatic. Introducing height too quickly — moving from cross rails to two-foot-six or three feet before the rider's position is stable — creates anxiety that becomes associated with height specifically and that becomes increasingly difficult to overcome as heights continue to increase.