Building A Set of Horse Jumps – For Less than $300

I haven’t done a post like this in a while. And I am trying to earn some extra money, so I thought I would share with you Building A Set of Horse Jumps – For Less than $300! That means each jump will cost around $50.00 each to make.

And this includes all of the caulk, screws, sandpaper, and everything else you will need to make a complete set of 6 jumps.

If you are thrifty with your time, and plan this out, you can have this set of jumps ready in about a week. And that is not 7 full days of building jumps. No, you can do a little bit each day, and save the major work for the weekend. That’s how I do it.

How To Build Your Own Jumps

I am going to walk you through the process, one project at a time. So if you are ready to build your own jumps, keep reading.

For me, this is the perfect time of year to get out into my workshop (aka my garage). My arena is a hot mess. And the horses are enjoying their down time while the days are short. And honestly, I’m tired of coming home from work and sitting on the couch for 3 hours before going to bed.

So I made a list of jumps to build. These are all vertical (single) jumps. But you could turn one or two of them into oxers if you wanted to.

Material List

To build this set of jumps, you are going to need some wood. Hopefully you have a pickup truck to get it all to your house. But this is what you will need to buy:

• 23 landscaping timbers (cherrytone timbers from Home Depot)
• 16 2″ x 4″ x 8′
• 2 2″ x 6″ x 8′
• 4 cedar fence pickets
• 12 pair of jump cups (horse.com has the best price)
• 1 box of 3″ decking screws (star head)
• 1 box of 2″ decking screws (start head)
• Alex latex painters caulk
• 1 gallon Kilz2 primer
• Sandpaper
• Paint
• Frog tape painters tape (the green painter’s tape)

This will give you enough lumber, and supplies to make a complete set of 6 jumps with 5′ tall standards and 8′ long rails. If you want to save some money, and make 4′ tall standards, you would only need 17 landscaping timbers. This can reduce your cost by $24.00. But I will be making my standards 5′ tall, because I am selling this set of jumps. And everyone always seems to want 5′ tall standards. So that’s what I’m making.

The Tools

And in order to build the jumps, you will need the tools too. These are the tools you will need to build the jumps:

• Circular saw
• 18 volt drill (rechargeable- but now they make 20 volt drills, more power!)
• 7 Amp drill (plug in style)
• Orbital sander
• Caulking gun
• 1/2″ Spade type bit
• Measuring tape
• Paint brushes

You don’t have to have 2 different drills, but I find it easier. If you are doing this for the first time and buying tools in order to build this set of jumps, I would recommend a basic 7 AMP drill that you plug in. It will give you more power, and no waiting for batteries to charge! I bought mine from Walmart over 8 years ago, and it only cost around $25.00.

For an even better one now, you can find this 7 AMP corded drill on Amazon for around $40.00. And trust me, it is worth the investment.

I had the same experience with my circular saw. Again, I bought it at Walmart for around $30.00, and again over 8 years ago. This thing is a power horse, and works great for building jumps.

What You Will Be Building

You might be wondering what you will be able to build with all of that lumber. So let me break it down for you:

• 6 pairs of standards
• 11 rails
• 2 sets of raised rails
• 2 gates
• 2 walls

This will give you a very nice set of jumps to work with in your arena! I should mention for the walls, I will be using remnant wood that I already had lying around. But we will talk about that later on.

Building A Set of Horse Jumps – For Less than $300

All right, you have your tools, you have your materials, you have gotten a large chunk of the process done! Over the next few posts I am going to break down each of the process. One day will be building and painting the standards, painting the rails, and building boxes along with building raised rails for the ground.

So while you are waiting for the next step, building the standards, how about getting everything ready to go in your workshop? Start by organizing everything, and having a clean working space in order to make your jumps. This will make the process much easier and more methodical when you get to actually building the jumps.

Building A Set of Horse Jumps – For Less than $300

So get ready, get set, and go to Home Depot and get your supplies! Then come back to my blog, so we can build some horse jumps! If you want to see the last series I did like this, you can check out this blog post.