Training unmounted riders to look at jumps the right way could enhance horse and rider performance and prevent jumping accidents, suggest researchers who recently published a study on rider visualization.

Researchers from the United Kingdom and Ireland found more advanced riders were significantly better at recalling important points of focus in a picture of a jump than were nonriders and novice riders.

The researchers believe that expert riders use different visual strategies in their planning and approach to jumps.

“We are in the process of developing research into visual performance of riders. The paper was a preliminary study that highlighted that there were differences, even in simple simulated tasks, between novice and experienced riders,” said Carol Hall, PhD, senior lecturer in horse behavior and welfare at Nottingham Trent University in England