Show Jumping - Original Scoring Tariff

Original Scoring Tariff

The original list of faults introduced in Great Britain in 1925 was as follows:

• Refusing or Running out at any fence:

1st: 4 faults

2nd: elimination

(at first, stadium jumps were set as a single rail that sometimes would be up to five feet high. Some horses began to duck under these jumps instead, which perhaps is the origin of the term 'ducking out' at a fence)

• Fall of the horse, the rider, or both: elimination
• Touches: If a horse touched a fence without knocking it down, zero faults
• Rail down with front hooves: 4 faults
• Rail down with back hooves: 4 faults
• Foot in the water jump: if a horse lands with any number of feet in the water: 4 faults. No faults were incurred, however, if the raised block in front of the water was knocked down.
• Failure to break the timers starting or finishing would result in elimination.

Water jumps were once at least fifteen feet (5 m) wide, although the water often had drained out of them by the time the last competitor jumped. High jumping would start with a pole at around five feet high, but this was later abandoned, as many horses went under the pole. It was for this reason that more poles were added and fillers came into use. Time penalties were not counted until 1917.