What, if anything, is different from a regular meet when your hunt hosts a junior meet?
The hunt I belong to has several junior meets each season. We had one this past Sunday. I was riding at the back of 3rd flight wrangling wayward ponies and kidlets. I have been to several Jr meets, but this is the first I volunteered to wrangle.
Usually the juniors assume the staff roles, assisted by the staff. Unfortunately many members consider these meets to be a nuissance. The only downside i ve experiened was where one hunt catered to the kids of the mfh and staff.
We have a few meets for the junior members, and one that’s free for any junior to come try out hunting. Normally a few of the junior members are invited to ride up with the huntsman and the whippers-in. I think we’ve also done a junior field.
The reason why I ask…I have noticed that some of the jr meets are in locations that don’t have any jumps and some are in heavily paneled country.
The one Sunday went through territory that didn’t have any jumps. The only real obstacle of the day was a deep banked broad creek. The bank was likely 2 1/2 feet steeply banked by 8ft wide, but only about 6" of water running.
I made 4 trips across the creek to give leads to the 3 jrs on ponies and then one adult on a reluctant greenie. Tears and wanting to end the day and go back 30 minutes in. Moms and chaperone were trying to hold it together, but I think it was their first time taking out their younguns, so we’re a bit worried/stressed.
A fox gave us a lovely run and circled nicely so that 3rd was able to stay in the thick of it even though the tail end of third was DELAYED by the creek crossing.
One of the Mom’s / chaperones asked on the way in, what made this a jr hunt? Well competent juniors rode with staff and the rest rode in front of the adults if they wanted and there were members (like me) to help when things went sideways. I think she thought it was going to be a trail ride with hounds. I was just making sure that’s not what other hunts do.
I’ve been to junior meets with two different hunts. One hunt doesn’t do a lot of jumping in general, and had none on their junior hunt. The other one did, but had 2nd and 3rd fields for different levels. Individual juniors were invited to ride side-by-side with the staff at both hunts. They were real hunts and not glorified trail rides.
I’ve been on two and in both cases the juniors enjoyed a real hunt for free. Experienced juniors ride with staff, the others pick a field. It does seem that a big effort to get fields 1, 2 and 3 is made.
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