I am beginning to get the impression based on reading posts here and at Horse and Hound, and, especially, viewing hunt videos on Youtube, that most hunts today have “manufactured” jumps and obstacles. I think the old days of hunters having to go over real, working fences and gates is gone (and I’m not sure how much it really ever existed). Especially, in the U.S., I don’t see many people going over 4 1/2" barbed wire fences.
Is that true of your club? How high are your highest jumps?
Can’t speak for other hunts, but in our hunt country, all of the fencelines have coops built into them at regular intervals. Each of them has a pole across the top that usually gets dropped before we jump it and then put back up when everyone is over. Without the pole, most are 3’ to 3’3". Sometimes we get on a wild run though and just leave them up (no time to lose!), then they are closer to 3’9" or 4’. So technically, these are real, working fences that keep in livestock and separate property lines, but the coops are “manufactured” into the fenceline so we have the option to make it shorter. No sense in taking risks with bigger fences when you’re just hacking from covert to covert and no one wants to bother with a gate.
Also, not sure if this is what you were referring to when you said “manufactured”, but our hunt does not have any “just for fun” random jumps in the middle of fields or trails or anything. They’re all built into fencelines.
We have a couple of fences that go 3’ 6" but its not many. Most are 3’ to 3’ 3" also. What makes any jump tricky is the terrain and approach.
At my previous hunt we had one coup that was 3’ 9" and one that was 4’. Everything else was around 3’ give or take a couple of inches.
Thanks. Those are high. :eek: I think the highest jumps on our hunt properties are about 2’ 6".
By “manufactured”, I meant that you weren’t just jumping over regular fences. Around here, fences are barbed wire and I can’t see horse people taking their animals over barbed wire. So, coops/coups, would count as manufactured.
However, that’s a good point and a whole other question – do you have jumps just put up to give jumping opportunities? Virtually all of ours are that way.
From what I’ve seen out at the new hunt I belong to, there is not jumping just to get to jump. Everything has a purpose and most is just to get from field to field. There are “natural” jumps of fallen logs, etc. Our fencing is mostly 3-4 board fencing, and yes, our hunt is known to just gallop on down and jump it if we are on a run. I have also heard that barbed wire has been jumped. Any purposeful jump I’ve seen out there can’t be much under 3’. Most are bigger. The last club I belonged to did not have a lot of paneling, but I would say most did not exceed 3’3".
[QUOTE=wanabe;3506306]
However, that’s a good point and a whole other question – do you have jumps just put up to give jumping opportunities? Virtually all of ours are that way.[/QUOTE]
I’ve wondered whether this tends to be a difference between live v. drag hunts. The hunt that I cap with now is drag. Most of their fences are 3’ to 3’6" high, with some higher stone walls, but virtually all jumps have go arounds. However, when I’ve hunted live, I didn’t see any jumps up just for the sake of jumping.
Pretty much everywhere I’ve hunted, panels (your manufactured jumps, coops or post and rails) are installed by the hunt club, with a landowner’s permission, at strategic locations in the fence line. The fences were there first, and serve a purpose, usually to keep livestock in. As you note, jumping wire is not for the faint of heart, so panels are installed so that hunt followers can stay with hounds but still respect the landowner’s use of land. When hunting new country one really has to hunt it a few times (go through gates, or jump the wire:)) til one gets a feel for which way the quarry tends to go- then you can arrive at the best locations for the panels.
Only place I’ve ridden where you have the choice of jumping, or not, is the Hitchcock Woods in Aiken- drag hunt there- and one has jump height options, or you just go around as they are set in the quite wide paths.
When I helped build jumps in VA, we built them at 3’6" and they tended to settle over time. A 25 yo coop might wilt all the way to 2 feet. BUT- if they are not built high enough to hold livestock, then you need to install a rail over the top, to be lowered before jumping and put back after jumping (or, some of us just didn’t bother and jumped the rail). Cattle have no problem jumping 3 feet, or even 3’6" if they have a mind to.
At least one hunt out in Colorado ‘panels’ by simply putting PVC pipe over the strands of barbed wire. Seems to work well but you need to like jumping vertical fences!
These responses are all very interesting. 
I can see our hunt club has a long way to go to come up to standard!
BTW, I think our barbed-wire fences down here are typically 4 1/2 feet, so I don’t see that many people would ever think of going over one, even if it had PVC covers on the strands! :eek:
It should be borne in mind that there’s three feet and then there’s three feet. In other words, a three-foot obstacle doesn’t sound high or difficult, and when you’re jumping it in a ring, or on the flat, or when there’s a nice clear approach and a level landing, it’s not a problem at all. But if you’re jumping out of mud or onto a big drop or under trees or around a corner or onto a blind landing downhill in slippery conditions, a three-foot coop can be somewhat tricky. So the sort of real estate you hunt over may influence the size of the panels.
Last winter I was riding along a woodland trail and saw a three-foot stone wall ahead. My horse seemed very comfortable with this height so I didn’t hesitate and neither did he. What I didn’t know (though everybody else did!) was that on the far side of that stone wall was a steep drop with a landing on a muddy creek bank. Then the creek was too rocky to ford, so it was a bounce over the creek to another muddy slippery uphill creekside slope and another bounce over another three-foot stone wall, which was made much higher by the uphill takeoff. So the whole set piece was a bit of a challenge to me as I am not an event rider. Very good horse, though.
As I say, three feet means different things in different country.
The farm were my retired mare lives lets a hunt go threw in the fall after haying. We have five hay fields that are split up by tree lines and stone walls.
One of the stone walls looks like it’s about 2’ but the drop into the next field is about 3’9". Most of the other stone walls are about 3’3". The ones that are settling have a log across the top. There are gaps between each field for the tractor/hay wagons to go threw. So the walls are real easy to go around.
In another of the hay fields is a coop just set off to the side so I guess that’s a free choice jump, it looks to be 3’3" also. The hunt club built it.
It’s great to see the hunt ride threw. Makes me wish I still had my old gelding from High School. He would have had a ball Hunting.
Jumps
Yes - most I have jumped in this area are 2’6" to 3’3". Most coops, some verticals.
I hunted a TB for a while that would sometimes avoid a coop on approach and would jump the barbed wire instead - always made me goofy when he did that ! Yikes !
Here is a video of a jump ( The tallest in that country ) at the now defunct Wabash Hounds and someone having a hard time making it - I hated that jump and went around it that day ! It was a 'vertical ’ just a flat panel and not a coop - I thought it was dangerous.
I don’t think we have anything over 3 foot. Mostly coops, maybe a couple of post & rails. Our old country had more post & rails but we don’t hunt there anymore. There are a couple of fixtures that have few or no jumps. I noticed we have a lot of new coops in our new country and they look pretty low, maybe 2’9". They are all coops also. Our country has crops and cattle so where there’s cattle we have fencing to deal with. The cattle fencing is all barbed wire so the hunt has to put in coops where we are likely to go.
[QUOTE=Ashby;3507394]
Last winter I was riding along a woodland trail and saw a three-foot stone wall ahead. My horse seemed very comfortable with this height so I didn’t hesitate and neither did he. What I didn’t know (though everybody else did!) was that on the far side of that stone wall was a steep drop with a landing on a muddy creek bank. Then the creek was too rocky to ford, so it was a bounce over the creek to another muddy slippery uphill creekside slope and another bounce over another three-foot stone wall, which was made much higher by the uphill takeoff. So the whole set piece was a bit of a challenge to me as I am not an event rider. Very good horse, though.
As I say, three feet means different things in different country.[/QUOTE]
Same thing happened to me in totally unfamiliar country. we were weaving in and out of some woods, and I was just far enough behind the person in front of me that I couldn’t see their jump through the woods. So, I set my horse up for what seemed to be a strait forward 3ft 3 stone wall. Well, my wonderful beasty just kept going, and going, and going on the landing side, and to say that I was totally unprepared for a 4ft drop would be an understatement. I went all the way down the bannister and landed in a heap. Good old waldo got caught up in the excitement and kept going! He was returned to me after field reversal, then I lept on and continued. What an awesome horse, but also a great reminder to be prepared to fall off the face of the earth after a seemigly simple jump!
I learned early on to watch the head of the rider in front of so I could tell if it was a drop, flat or uphill landing. I still do it on unfamiliar territory.
Most of our hunt territory is not fenced land, so our obstacles are for the most part, downed trees in the woods, some old stone fences that run randomly through the woods, and plenty of ditches and banks. Almost all the jumps in our territory are optional so the only real difference between our first flight and our third flight is how closely/fast they follow the hounds. Our second flight is usually combined with our first and they just ride around the obstacles. Third flight usually catches up with first several times each hunt.
“real working fences.”
hmmmm…
a little coop built into the barbed wire is real enough and works for me.
Maybe eventing is what you want. I want to follow the hounds.
It’s not what I “want” since I coudn’t handle that, LOL. I WAS a little disappointed the first time I rode with this hunt and saw the way things were set up. It seemed a little phony to me. Obviously, most of you are doing more than this hunt does. But I was just curious to see if things were like they were in the old days, anywhere.
Originally posted by Ashby:
Last winter I was riding along a woodland trail and saw a three-foot stone wall ahead. My horse seemed very comfortable with this height so I didn’t hesitate and neither did he. What I didn’t know (though everybody else did!) was that on the far side of that stone wall was a steep drop with a landing on a muddy creek bank. Then the creek was too rocky to ford, so it was a bounce over the creek to another muddy slippery uphill creekside slope and another bounce over another three-foot stone wall, which was made much higher by the uphill takeoff. So the whole set piece was a bit of a challenge to me as I am not an event rider. Very good horse, though.
Ah, the good old days! (An event rider would get to walk the course! A hunt rider … well … the good old days). :winkgrin:
Anybody remember ever reading (back in the good old days) that if you come to a wire fence you should drape your coat over it so the horse has something to see to jump? I don’t think I would do that in a million years! :eek:
I’m not sure what you mean by the old days. Coops have been built in fencelines in Virginia for ages. The height of the coop is really up to the landowner and what they are trying keep penned in. My view is that a coop is as natural as any other fence.
Its not really about jumping anyway. Here in Madison and Rappahannock we can run long and fast and rarely jump. I think the first run I ever went on with RH, we ran for an hour and jumped two coops. It was a great run.
Just the other day the hounds ran a fox for a good 45 minutes and we didn’t jump anything except for some trees and limbs that were down.
The best “run” I’ve seen, we never moved off the top of a hill and that was first flight. That day we happened to be standing on a hill when the hounds were cast. They crossed the river and went up the opposing mountainside. We couldn’t follow in that area. Then the hounds turned and ran the side of the mountain. Then they crossed the river again and continue to circle around us. All of a sudden two foxes come tearing out of the woods with the hounds following. The only thing we did on that “run” was to keep turning the horses so we could watch.
I hunted for 5 years just about 3 days a week in PA. Not any more though. Sooo depressing. Anyway real fence lines are regularly jumped. Three rail and the very occasional four rail. Those are definitely some of my favorite days even though I ride to hunt of course!
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You may also receive promotional emails from The Chronicle of the Horse. You can opt out at any time.
For Customers
Company
Terms of Use
