My daughter has a new horse she would like to teach to jump. It is a 4yo pretty well broke (6 months reining training). Could you experienced people please outline how you bring one along in jumping? So far we have been trotting her over ground poles in series and also ground poles set between standards. We are just not sure when to try her over a jump and if so, what patterns to set up.

Yes, she was in Pony club for years. We have an older mare she taught to jump, but just for fun, this one she wants to show so we want to be sure we do it correctly.
If she wants to show the horse, I would recommend you get a trainer to come and help her once a week or so. There are a couple of books that are good, 101 jumping exercises comes to mind, that will help you set up lines with related distances.
I have been so trying to find a trainer! We only have a couple in town and they are so inconsistent and never return phone calls. I may get her signed up for Pony Club again for some extra help. Thanks for the book suggestion.
I've trained my thoroughbred to jump and am currently training my mom's QH/Arab mare to jump...but that is with the help and supervision of a trainer. So I'm not an expert! But this is what we did with Bailey and are doing with McKenna:

We didn't really start with cabalettas because the horses already were comfortable with them, but do so if your horse isn't. Then, for quite awhile, we set up a very small x. Not something that was big enough to make them jump at all; just a low x. We practiced trotting over that...basically you're laying the foundation here. Some big things to focus on are, as I understand, making sure you are on a very straight line coming up to and away from the fence, as well as making sure to go over the very middle of the x. That part is basically just to get the horse comfortable going over an obstacle. From there we gradually raised the height, basically doing the same thing, until it was high enough for a jump, and so on and so forth. Don't get stuff too high too quickly, though, you don't want to over face a young horse.

That's probably where I would stop, or maybe before, without having a trainer to keep an eye on things and make sure no bad habits are developing. Another book I like is Jumping Problems Solved, Grid work: The Secret To Success, by Carol Mailer. It's got some good stuff for starting the young horse in there with canter pole grids.

Starting with ground poles is a good idea what I whould do is louge the horse/pony over poles and just raise it a bit at a time praise him if hes good, just don't rush him. theres nothing to it really ive train a hand full of horses to jump and i have never had major issues with it. once your horse/pony is jumping calmly and confidently (sp) ride him over the jumps once he gets a hang of jumping,

Somthing that I learned that i fined helpful is make taking the jump the horses responsibility. send the horse at the jump, then wait if he takes it great, if not just sit there and watch him. if he gives up send him around at the jump from the other side. and do it again , make a big deal if he takes if ( praise the heck out of him). Watch him if he puts his nose on it thats a big step horses are prey animals and putting his nose on somthing is like going up to a lion and sniffing it. if his head and neck goes over thats "zone 3" hes making progress, let him do if on step at a time. or one foot at a time more like. he will get to the point that he'll come up to the jump and just pop over it.

see somthing that a lot of riders do is take there horse up to a fence and force there horse to take it, its not the horses choise he just has to take it. remember that u want the horse to jump the fence not u. then these riders take there horses up to jumps and they can't just sit back and know the horse will take the fence they have to be there kicking and popping there horse with a crop to make him do it. so then the horse thinks of jumping as a boring or sacry thing cause there human makes them take the jump.

thanks for ur time I hope this helps some - ec

I have a slightly different way of thinking then English_Cowgirl, yet everyone does things different. Maybe you can take a bit of everyones idea here and use it with your own.

Jumping is a natural ability in a horse. You don't really need to "teach" the horse how to jump, it just comes natural. I have taught a few greenies and I do start with ground poles. I will set 4 ground poles in a row and have 1 pole between the jump standards. Once he is moving over those with no problems. I will put a tiny tiny tiny X. When he gets to that x, I will give him leg, encouraging him to pop up and over instead of just jogging over it. Make sure to give him most of the rein, you want to have 0 contact with his mouth while he is learning to go over the jump. If he decides to stop, make him at least walk over it. Do not, pull him away from the jump and start over. The last thing you want him to do is think that stoping is OK and he wont have to go over it if he does stop. I also, do not focus on any distances. I let the horse figure out where he needs to jump from to get himself over that fence. As they progress and get better, I will then start to help him find his distances if needed and will also start adding slight contact with his mouth.

Pick up the book by Reiner Klimke on cavaletti. He builds up the caveletti to jumping grid work. It's awesome and a great way to get a horse to start jumping in a balanced and forward manner. Gymnastics are fantastic for fixing all sorts of jumping issues from distance issues to rushing. Also makes for a great athlete.