Show Jumping Guide — Horses of Hoofprint Bay

Show jumping is one of three competition disciplines in Horses of Hoofprint Bay (alongside Caprilli and cross country). It is the step up from Caprilli tests: higher fences, more speed pressure, and less forgiveness when your strength bar runs dry. The loop is simple—license at home, compete in town, win to climb four levels on each horse—but the sidescrolling ride punishes sloppy timing.

Screenshot: official Steam store page.

How do you enter a show jumping competition?

Competitions are not on your farm map. You prepare at the riding arena, then travel to town and open the competition arena. Community documentation and guides describe the same flow:

1. Build and upgrade the riding arena so show jumping license courses are available (see building upgrade order for when new courses unlock).
2. Clear a show jumping license run—training marked as competition license—so that horse is allowed to enter show jumping.
3. Upgrade the parking lot for a horse trailer when you are ready to haul horses to town (grindnstrat and the TMQ Horse Game Database both note trailer capacity grows with parking upgrades).
4. Groom the horse and wear competition clothing before you go. Dirty tack or wrong outfit can hurt prestige if you still enter.
5. Pick the show jumping event at the level your horse has unlocked (Beginner first on a new horse).

Each horse tracks its own progress. Winning Beginner unlocks Novice for that horse; after you move up, that horse typically cannot drop back to lower show jumping tiers on the same discipline.

What are the show jumping levels?

Guides agree on four labels (localization may rename them):

Caprilli only runs at Beginner and Novice; show jumping and cross country continue through Advanced. For the Novice spike in difficulty, see medium / Novice show jumping guide.

How does scoring work?

The game does not publish a full judge’s score sheet for wiki writers. What you can rely on from multiple community sources plus developer-adjacent riding rules:

• You need to finish inside the time limit and stay under the mistake cap, same family as passing riding training.
• Refusals, falls, knocked rails, and missed gates count against you (grindnstrat competition tips; TMQ riding section).
• Placement compares you to NPC riders with slightly random times, so a clean fast round beats a sloppy one.

Exact penalty seconds per rail are not verified here—play for clean rounds, not for guessing math.

How should you jump each obstacle type?

Riding uses arrow keys for gaits and Space to jump by default (remappable—see controls and keybindings). Jump arc depends on gait:

• Canter — higher, shorter jump (good for vertical/upright fences).
• Gallop — lower, wider jump (good for water and wide spreads).

Community guides and a long Steam thread on “medium” show jumping align on fence-specific habits:

When strength drops below the warning marker, timing windows shrink—developer-facing posts on training stress that exhausted horses fail jumps more easily.

What should you train before show jumping?

Show jumping drains Strength fast and rewards Endurance for recovery between fences. Confidence still matters because horses may ignore gait changes when confidence is low or when certain personality traits fire.

For stat growth, course choice, and exhaustion rules, use the canonical training guide—this page only adds competition angles:

• Run show jumping arena courses that match the fences you expect in town.
• Use lunging early if the horse is too green to ride hard lines.
• Stop before the red exhaustion marker in training so you are not nursing a tired horse on competition day.
• Keep up horse care so you are not losing stats to neglected basics.

What mistakes do new riders make?

These show up repeatedly in Steam discussions and beginner-facing guides:

1. Muscle memory from other games — tapping Space expecting “go faster” while arrow keys control gait. Remap jump or practice in the arena until Space only means jump.
2. One timing for every fence — oxers and water need different takeoff points than verticals.
3. Galloping the whole course — strength empties before the last jumps; canter most fences, burst gallop only where width matters.
4. Skipping the license run — the entry menu will not treat the horse as qualified.
5. Ignoring random daily order — memorize principles, not a fixed fence sequence.
6. Optional jump assists misunderstood — Settings may offer jump help (players report toggles there), but you still must manage gaits and strength; assists are not an auto-win button.

If you are still on a low-stat starter mare, many players run Caprilli tests first—developers added Caprilli after rebalance so early horses could still compete while breeding catches up.

Sources and verification

Compiled 2026-11-05 from:

• Horses of Hoofprint Bay on Steam (store features, screenshots)
• Steam community news — Caprilli and cross country notes
• grindnstrat HoHB guide — riding, jumping, competitions
• TMQ Horse Game Database — HoHB riding and competitions
• Reddit — AliceTheGamedev on strength/endurance while riding
• Steam discussion — medium show jumping difficulty and controls

Items marked as community reports (exact penalty math, optional stat thresholds like “85/85”) were not independently confirmed in-game. This article was compiled from public sources; we did not hands-on test the shipping build.