🐎 Long post about cross country rules and several XC fence types explained! (Patreon)

Cross country - shortened XC - in Rein Ravine has unique rules and a diverse variety of jump types that each have their own challenges.

First, let's talk a little bit about how the cross country competitions in general will work.

The obstacles in cross country are each given a difficulty level, relative to the overall difficulty of the course. The easiest jumps give you 10 points and the hardest give you 50. Therefore we have a total of 5 levels - 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 points. Colored flags on both left and right tell the rider which level fence it is.

The same fence can be jumped again from the other direction later in the course. Each fence can therefore be jumped a maximum of two times, but the directions have to be different. (This rule applies to showjumping in the main game as well, and is an addition to what was possible in the demo.) In cross country, the difficulty level from the other side might be higher or lower, like when the jump is on elevated surface. 

Some XC jumps are frangible, meaning similar to showjumping poles, there are parts in it that can break into fragments and fall to the ground. For example with a jump made out of boxes, the boxes will move and fall if the horse hits them. 

Breaking a fence during a course is acceptable - a broken fence is still considered cleared as long as the horse did attempt to jump it and didn't just run through it. However to receive full points the fence must be cleared with no part to the ground (slightly moving a part is okay as long as it doesn't fall all the way to the ground). For instance if the jump was evaluated at 20 points (level 2), breaking it might only give you 15 points.

Frangible fences can be considered easier in a sense, especially to a beginner in cross country, since jumping them doesn't require a perfect eye for distance. Since the fence can break, there is a wider error margin in the distance at which horses are willing to jump it. This again has similarities with regular showjumping fences.

Other jumps, like a bank or an uphill jump are solid and cannot be broken. This kind of jump can only give you full points or nothing. The challenge with solid jumps is that they can easily yield refusals if your distance estimation fails, since horses will need to be more careful on them or they could be in danger. As a general rule solid jumps are considered intermediate to advanced and typically give you more points than breakable jumps.

There can also be fences that are only semi-solid - the bush fence above is a good example. This fence's challenge is more so lining your horse perfectly towards the narrow hole than the jumping distance, since the bush is only somewhat solid material and thus allows some collision of the legs.

Some horses can like certain types of fences more than others and some might even be severely scared of some. 

A notable difference between showjumping and cross country in Rein Ravine is that a XC course can have obstacles where the athlete is presented multiple (maximum three) fences in a row to choose from. A common scenario would be an obstacle that has one frangible and one solid next to each other. The athlete can either risk it and go for the higher points in the solid jump, or do the frangible one with less worry on losing time to a possible refusal.

Fundamentally, this feature gives cross country a high risk - high reward essence, where the greater the risk you take the greater you can fail or win. It is perhaps the single most significant factor that separates XC from showjumping in Rein Ravine.

Speaking of time - each course has an optimum time of completion. Completing the course within the optimum time is awarded with maximum time points. Exceeding the optimal time is penalized by deducing time points. The absolute maximum time of completion is double the optimum time, exceeding that gets the athlete eliminated. On the other hand, finishing in less than the optimum time does not produce any extra points.

At the end, points gained from the obstacles and time points are added together, which gives us the total score of the rider's performance. The rider with the most total points wins.

Before I finish this post, let's briefly go through each XC fence type one by one.

Log jump.  This one is solid and cannot be broken. Requires a shorter more upwards jump, similar to a vertical showjumping fence.

Bank jump. This one is also solid, but wider than the log. Requires a longer jump similar to an oxer or a triple. The rounded top makes it hard to get stuck on it.

Plank jump.  A common breakable jump. The wooden planks detach easily if this fence receives any hit.

Box jump.  Another breakable jump. Each box can fall off. However because of the wideness of the boxes it's more forgiving than the plank. A mild collision might not bring down a box, only slightly move it.

Flower box jump. This one is also frangible. Hitting the wooden parts can make the boxes topple over. However hitting the flowers does not do anything but produce some leaves.

Keyhole bush jump. Semi-solid. Might look scary, but is actually quite easy. The bush parts on the sides and top cannot be collided with, but the bottom part is somewhat forgiving. Produces leaves when jumping through. 

Step jump. An advanced jump that requires careful riding distance-wise similar to solid fences. Can be jumped from both directions as either uphill or downhill jump. 

Water jump. The jump in and out of water has the same idea as the step jump but with water. However some sides of the water jump might not require jumping to get in or out. Can be combined with other fences.