forgive me while I DROOL over your horse, I didn’t even notice your elbow/ ducking/ that he had a rider on him at all.
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HAHAHAH! Thank you, he was one of my very favorites. And you just illustrated my point exactly. On purpose, I know
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Beautiful photo at the one and only Ledges.
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Thanks!
Can we also go back to how a photo is LITERALLY just a fraction of a second in time?
I present to you my own evidence for you all to nitpick and navel gaze and cry about the good 'old days over:
I’m atrocious, right? Shouldn’t even be jumping crossrails much less piloting the shown 6-year-old baby green hunter around his first show.
Oh, huh, not too bad now, right?
But note that here, the horse’s jump has flattened out considerably and the first shot, taken from a front or 3/4-angle view, would be a much more desirable photo for evaluating the horse for his job which is HUNTER. Not eq horse, not jumper, not even foxhunter—he is a hunter and he jumps best from the melty, soft ride that’s been described ad nauseam in this thread.
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If that’s what bad riding produces, where can I sign up?
I’d love to bad ride like that.
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Thank you!
I’m blushing!
I could ride a little before I got so old and broken…
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very nice
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I’ve seen pictures of very accomplished big eq juniors with that same position at that phase of the jump. Indeed, the timing of the photo tells the tale. The second photo is amazing. Beautiful pair.
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Except that was definitely happened in the good old days. You’re just remembering through rose colored glasses. There are lots and lots of photos of people ducking and legs swinging back throughout the history of both hunters and jumpers. If you think you can, get to indoors next year and beat them!
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Hunter judges are not judging the riders. How many times does that need to be said?
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If only the horse is being judged, why is there so much angst about which brand of boots/jacket/saddle should someone buy to be found in endless threads in this forum? Or, really radical, what color of coat is acceptable.? All things being equal, the horse is judged but the whole presentation and style will affect that judgement. Even those superhuman judges who work for endless hours at shows are only human, after all.
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You’re conflating two different things and you know that.
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Because the point is to not distract from the horse. Wearing a non-conventional get up would do that.
As far as the fashion and fads, that’s part of the fun of the hunter ring. It’s not fun for me which is one of the reasons why it was never my gig.
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Once more for the people in the back.
@Willesdon I"m assuming you are being intentionally obtuse because this stuff is not hard or complicated and has also been posted about ad naseum for the entirely of the 22 years I’ve participated in this forum.
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Nope.
Hunters leave longer (the hunter “gap”), have a smoother arch, and don’t generally crack their backs over a jump.
Jumper go to the base and have a different Parabola/arc over the job. Even the same Horse is going to feel different when Redden with pace to the base.
This is ridiculous. The OP dragged this crap over from facebook and hasn’t responded since. I then saw the photos in question on my feed and, like a car wreck, couldn’t help but take a peek. At which point I was reminded why I don’t read the comments on facebook.
This is not a but think of the children!!! worthy topic, and the fb comments are atrocious. These clients are paying the equivalent of my last 3 vacations for professionals to ride horses that cost more than my house around some sticks for a grand total of 8 minutes, and people are decrying 1/60th of a second as what’s gone wrong with kids these days…?!
Absolutely no one is teaching kids to ride like this, and we have the equitation classes to keep those standards in place. But you know the wobbly neck & helmet bob thing that you see on landing, even in the junior hunters? It’s the same thing. It’s the beginning of hunter jelly. And the kids are plenty capable enough to not do it in the equitation.
“My horse would sooooo lawndart me” she says with confidence from her La-Z-Boy whilst gazing longingly at that framed photo from the AHSA Medal at Indio, 1992. But that’s just it, they don’t. You think these pros are jumping off the side of everything they throw a leg over? HellstotheNo. You only hunter jelly when you know that beast is for damn sure leaving the ground, and that says something in and of itself.
Don’t like pros with the hunter drape then don’t hire pros with the hunter drape to ride your fancy hunter around Indoors for little more than national acclaim. And please leave the underbelly of facebook on the underbelly of facebook, where it belongs.
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But everything was sooooo much better back in the olden days when I never jumped higher than 3’ feet on my ottb, but still feel qualified to comment on that which I know nothing of, doncha know?
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Exactly! My childhood trainer, who is now an R judge (I saw him a few years ago judging Devon) used to tell me not to copy him, because he ducked like crazy in the air. He had a bad back, but he also laid on the neck and won a lot. My other trainer, married to him at that point, had beautiful equitation, but one of her sales horses used to crack his back like crazy and she started laying on his neck more to stay with the jump.
Show me any of those pictures with the horse’s ears back, tense, head raised, etc…? The horses clearly aren’t bothered by it.
If I rode my jumpers like that over jumpr courses I might end up on the ground, but I’m not trying to jump them like a hunter! I’m getting them bouncy and forward in their canter, head up, going right to the base of the jump so we go up instead of having that gappy, long, slow hunter arc, and then we land, half halt to rebalance and get them sitting on their hind ends again, and then gallop on. None of that is huntery.
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I think most people can agree the horses are incredible athletes and the riders get the job done. The horses’ beautiful jump, knees to nose, crested neck- just stunning to me. I also think that the snapshot in time is indeed, not a pretty overall picture - if you include the rider 
(not gonnal lie- some cringeworthy still shots). I’d kind of like to hear if it was intentional or just happens. I find it difficult, but not implausible, that they are ducking just to get the lead. I am an older ammy and get get mine to land on the lead by using my leg over the jump and they are way more talented than I.
In any case, I’l continue to mentally block out 99% of the riders anyway when I look at the horse jumping. Duck, don’t duck, if someone can ride it better- have at it. I’ll continue to enjoy the fantastic photos of the horse.
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