erika wrote:
HP my understanding from the OP is that the person would be looking to perhaps pop over a very small jump now and then for shits and giggles. 
Would enjoy w-t-c, pottering around, maybe a jump here and there but certainly nothing over, say, 2".
You don't need a horse who excels at jumping to be able to do this, just a horse who is reasonably co-ordinated enough to get himself over a jump safely if he's asked. You can find individuals in pretty much any breed who is capable of handling the kind of "jumping" the OP's friend is interested in doing.
I am not recommending a horse that excels at jumping. Did you even read my first post? However, a gaited horse is completely unsuitable. I'd hazard to say just about any horse, except full drafts and gaited horses, could handle popping over 2ft occastionally. And even some full drafts would be fine, I'm just hesitant to suggest them as a whole because they tend to have coordination problems with jumping. Half drafts are usually just fine. Reasons gaited horses are unsuitable for beginner jumping:

1. They are NOT built to jump well, they do not take to it naturally and can have trouble knowing where their feet are over the jump.
2.  Depending on the breed/training you might have to teach them to canter or trot! Fun for a beginner, right?
3. They are not typically used for jumping so finding one that already know how to jump safely for a beginner would be extremely rare
4. Hello learning to see a distance from a random gait? Yea, that's going to be easy!
5. Have fun finding a GOOD trainer that will help a beginner with a gaited horse jump.

Yall are SO ridiculous like all the time. No, don't listen to the person who has seen just about every kind of horse jump. Yes listen to those who have no clue about which they speak, of course, they have practically jumping experience/knowledge, but whatevs, it's all cool. Yes, definitely recommend one of the very few breeds that would be completely unsuitable just because HP said that they'd  be completely unsuitable. Seriously, I'm being VERY logical here, I'm not saying she needs a KWPN or even a TB. I made reasonable suggestions, and I made my point about why gaited horses are completey, utterly, and entirely unsuitable. Why are yall trying to turn this into a fight?

That video CLEARLY shows why a TWH would be entirely unsuitable for a beginner who wants to jump. If you do not see why, then you have no clue about jumping and should not be participating in the discussion in the first place.

"But it doesn't matter cause I'm packing plastic

and that's what makes my life so fucking fantastic"