I am going to start a hunter pace series to benefit a GREAT cause.
I am looking for input as to what people value in a good hunter pace, I would like to have lots of people, obviously!
I would also like to open it up to western riders as well (which I know makes it more of a “timed Trail ride”, but want everyone to be able to participate).
Can I get some suggestions for “how to put on a hunter pace”.
Thanks!!!
A fun course that is well-marked! We try to add jumps and/or trails every year. Our fences rangs from 18" to 3’+. Try offering a lower height class for novice riders or horses. Our flat classes are allowed to jump anything that looks fun to them along the way. We open it to everyone and anyone who wants to come & ride.
If there are a lot of younger riders think about offering a shorter lead line course. We allow leaders to be on foot or mounted, and have “checkpoints” where the kids can pick up candy or small toys from the dollar store. It’s pretty popular.
I have been involved in a new Hunter Pace over the last couple of years. We had different divisions including both flat, low and higher jumps. A couple of consistent comments I’ve had was to have ribbons for 1st, 2nd, 3rd places. We also offered lunch with the entrance fees. We got awesome feedback on our food choices. Our Hunter Pace is a fund raiser for a local rescue so we had volunteers make different dishes such as soups, chili and stew. Lastly just mark the trails very well. Additionally we had someone at the mid way point to provide water or apple cider. Hope this helps!
Affordability…
I’m much happier to enter 8 classes at $10 each than 3 classes at $25. ie, I’ll spend more to play more.
Lunch included in the entry fee is great.
I appreciate a mounted course walk, but next best would be quality detailed maps.
As someone with lots of green horses, I appreciate lower level courses, for introductory exposure. You can also vary classes, by requiring one of a pair to jump, both jump, or both jump together if the fences allow. A longer course where the participants must switch horses at the midpoint is an extra challenge.
One challenge we face is having “pretty trails”.
Flat, sandy, pine forest land in the sandhills of NC is tough…
I like to get as much bang for my $$ as possible. I like a long pace, anywhere from 1 -2 hrs. I did a pace last summer that was over in 30 minutes at the walk! Very disappointed. People like ribbons. We do one where they give ribbons to tenth place. Try to post the results as soon as you can–and where people can find them, like on your web site. I enjoy reading the results to see who else participated. 
1.) well organized. Decent in length, I think it is harder to get people to travel a bit to your pace if it’s only 4 or 5 miles. Multiple divisions.
2.) Good footing
3.) nice jumps that have good approaches/landings in a variety of heights. I’ve been to some paces where they just pile up some logs and sticks at any given place.
4.) lunch included
5.) well marked
6.) ribbons/prizes/awards ceremony after lunch
7.) photographer is a plus!
What LookinSouth said
…and strawberry roan, too.
We have several nice paces in the Hudson Valley. The best ones have good jumps, good footing, good food and some terrific views. Oh, and good parking, too.
mid-point check
The only suggestion I can add is one I encountered once in a well-run, early season hunter pace. The organizers had a check point a little bit like a check point at a competitive distance ride or endurance ride. It came complete with a water trough and volunteer vet who took the horse’s pulse and respiration.
The organizers wanted to make sure that no horses got hurt on their watch, and the brief check-in with the vet gave riders a chance to assess their horse’s fitness as well as the pace they were choosing.
It was a nice touch that added a learning opportunity to a fun day.
We’ve had the most fun at paces that were well marked and long enough to justify the time and expenses. Graduated jump heights at each jump is a real bonus. Our hilltop division is considerably larger than the manditory jumping division, but most of the riders love to try some of the smaller jumps.
I also agree that most people like ribbons so a lot of placements make everyone happy. If the division is large, divide the division (place the first 30 teams as teams 31-60 are still riding, then placing the second tier as a seperate group). This reduces the waiting time for results, allowing early riders the opportunity to leave, and awards more teams.
I LOVE hunter paces! Good Luck!
Agree with everyone else…good suggestions.
I like to see a few different divisions based on difficulty (pace, terrain, jumps…).
My local hunt club puts on a wonderful day called the Mimosa Cup. It draws all sorts. They have hunter trials, a mock hunt, steeplechase races, pairs races…something for everyone. It is great for introducing new people to the club. They also draw in non-riders with things like a birds of prey demo, agility dog stuff… If I remember correctly they charge by the car unless you are competing, then you pay a flat entry fee (around $100??) and can enter what you like on the day. It is a really fun day.
Organized trailer parking where you can get in and out easily, about 6 - 12 miles clearly marked. One I went in last fall had the map printed on a bandana - cool idea and very practical.
This sounds like a blast! I wish the hunts in our area would put something like this on…
[QUOTE=sisu27;3974049]
Agree with everyone else…good suggestions.
I like to see a few different divisions based on difficulty (pace, terrain, jumps…).
My local hunt club puts on a wonderful day called the Mimosa Cup. It draws all sorts. They have hunter trials, a mock hunt, steeplechase races, pairs races…something for everyone. It is great for introducing new people to the club. They also draw in non-riders with things like a birds of prey demo, agility dog stuff… If I remember correctly they charge by the car unless you are competing, then you pay a flat entry fee (around $100??) and can enter what you like on the day. It is a really fun day.[/QUOTE]
sisu - do you have a website for the Mimosa Cup? That sounds like a lot of fun, with a lot of variety!
Good hunter paces I’ve been to offer munchies and drinks 2/3 of the way around, and had a photographer at the start/finish line who got some awesome shots - heading out, excited horses and riders; heading home, hot, tired, muddy happy horses and riders. and lots of different classes, such as different speeds (first field, second field, hill toppers, etc).
Try running it as a fund-raiser for a charity; the charity will often kick in their own set of rewards/prizes, and there’s a great feel-good sentiment about the whole occasion, so everyone wins, and there’s also often a good deal of help with the publicity, admin, etc.
On the hunter paces I organized I made all the jumps extra wide with two different heights and of course a go around. Ours was about 10 miles, done in a bit over an hour. I too like longer paces. We encouraged pairs, triple groups and singles. If a 4-some came, that was great.
Our pace went in through the woods and out into fields and back into the woods again. When we came out into a field, it was an opportunity to set up jumps all around the field, so it was done in a loop - came in at a corner, cross to the center of the field for a jump, around clockwise with two jumps on each side and out the opposite end, down a lane, to another field. Because they were ina field, we could make really nice big jumps. We encouraged pairs and threesomes, so with this set up, the threes could jump abreast!! People LOVED it! One side was a cross rail, or low 1 foot size. We made it fun because even the low side was always a fun jump. If it was only one foot high, but the other wa sa 3 foot or 2.5 foot spread, we made the low side a spread also, but say 1 foot high by 1.5 foot wide. this gave the ponies and beginners a chance to do fun jumps yet they were still low.
One fall, the theme was “harvest hunt” and I made a great jump out of hay bales, with corn stalks at either end and pumpkins at the base. The low side was one hay bale high and wide, the high side was two hay bales high and wide. I made a scarecrow for the middle between the two sides.
We had every kind of jump in the woods, gates and coops, all high and low sided. We had a water jump at a stream. In one field, the jumps were all standards with high quality freshly painted rails. In the other, they were tree trunks like telephone poles with huge stumps, with a notch cut into them, very sturdy but natural and cost nada, we cut them out of the woods and large blue barrells on their sides end to en with a large, long white pvc drainage poles atop. The short side of that one was only the large pvd pole about 1 foot up.
For the fall, we had a special prize (always ribbons) for the best costume. It meant we got turned out pairs and triples, like one set of three horses were all bays - a 13 hand pony, a TB and a huge Draft, all bays with red ribbons, and the three were dressed identically in breeches, black coats and black field boots, black hunt caps.
One single guy came on a big black horse, rode alone, as the headless horseman. He wore a plastic pumpkin, I don’t know how he did it for the whole ride, but he came in with it still on. Maybe he left it near the beginning and picked it up again, who knows. It looked great, though.
Another pair were eventers, they wore identical t-shirts which looked like a nearly nude body in a bikini. From far away, you thought they were really wearing bikinis. Others came dressed as skeletons, ghosts. Many just came wintout costume. So, at the end, there were special prizes, best costume, best turned out pair/triple. Also, we gave out a blue ribbon for the group/person who traveled the farthest to get there.
I loved building the course. Some of the jumps were permanent from year to year, but many of them we built just for the event, like those in the hay fields. We had to wait until the last cut was done before we could ride in the fields, but it was a great time of year, late october. What a blast.
Last thing is what someone else mentioned, we had three categories, flat, intermediate and advanced, each with different times as the ideal. The rider who timed the event did it either the day before or that morning and didn’t compete, but she stayed out on the course to keep tabs on folks and on the jumps. With a 10 mile course, we didn’t need a water break. With 15 miles or more, you probably would want to factor that in. We did have several streams and ponds, so anyone needing to could stop if their horse needed it.
What a blast!
I want to add that, our course has always been 10 -12 miles, and with a ‘full house’ that really took all day to get all the teams in. I don’t remember how they were staggered, 5 mins apart? More? Someone else can say, but if the course was any longer, it might have dragged the event into the evening. We would get hundreds of folks for this event, because we invited western barns, ECTRA folks, eventing barns, hunt barns, and all the single small barns we could find or knew of, and most people came - we did two a year, the first was late May, when the fields and woods were finally dry enough not to tear it all up, and mid to late October, both times an enthusiastic time of the year to go!
To attract more people, hold a hunter and pleasure pace at the same time. The pleasure pace is either shorter, or more time is allotted for it. They don’t have to be different courses. That way you have a venue for the people who really want to compete and whose horses are fit and for the weekend warriors who are just out for a trail ride. A well-marked course is absolutely essential. I once did a pace in a huge state park, and a few teams went completely off course and got lost for hours because of confusion in the marking of the course. Food, prizes, all of that gives the pace a good vibe.
AR, if this Hunter pace is in CT and will be running this year let me know, I may be interested in attending. thks
THANKS!!! 
Prizes, prizes, prizes: Have 3-5 check points enroute (depending upon length of pace) w/staff of 2 who give out liquids (water, Mimosas, whatever) and raffle tickets.
After the ribbons are given out (usually w/a lunch), then do the raffle. This ensures that everyone has a good time, no matter what their rider skill level is. Prizes can be donations from tack stores/members/other of lower value items (OK, maybe one or two nicer items ($20? $30?); most of the $$ go to the ribbon prizes).
Nice white elephant gifts count - one member donated a crystal wine decanter that she’d received for Christmas that she didn’t want. It was on the table w/several other “top” prize raffle items that riders were allowed to choose from; the first winner grabbed it with glee.
Have tons of smaller value prizes. A LOT of them. For example, gifty things (even horsey pillow sheets, kitchen hot pads, stationery, aprons, vases, whatever). Everybody has a great time because almost everyone gets something. And, then they ALL want to come back next time!!
Having slower fields allows the more trail-ish types to participate and thereby, more entries. They have a big thrill being able to come out and particpate in something official, and they provide the biggest entertainment at the raffle when they win something - even small - because they WON, and they didn’t expect to be able to come home with anything!!
A good time for all!
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