Dear Cothers,
I come from an eventing/fox-hunting background in Europe but I have recently been asked to help with the local college equestrian club (they have aspirations of eventually competing in ISHA) - mostly because I am the only one with a lesson string and - well - English saddles in a 70 miles radius around the college.
Now, I am happy to help them if I can but - see above comment about background in going fast over hedges and logs - I know nothing about the hunter world.
I plan on trying to make a trip to a couple IHSA shows to get a sense of what the judges are looking for. But what would you recommend as the best ways to educate myself on the specifics of “hunterland”?
Thank you!
You’re in luck. They’re live-streaming the hunters at Upperville this week. Perfect opportunity to see how a finished hunter goes:
3 Likes
You might also find this article helpful What Determines How You Place in the Hunters? - The Plaid Horse Magazine
One of the keys to focus on is a good canter, a smooth even pace, and the correct number of strides down the lines. The striding is not arbitrary, it is set for the appropriate step and pace for a smooth round. Consistency in the distances is also a goal in the hunters - you will get deductions if you take off at the deep spot to some fences and the long spot to others, you are trying to find a similarly nice take off point for each of the jumps to keep it smooth.
2 Likes
I was about to post the exact same thing.
Extra lucky since it is a show with the judge’s scores announced, so it’s even easier to get an idea of the difference between a good round and a great round.
2 Likes
Since IHSA is judged on the riders equitation, not the horse (hunters), you will want to keep an eye out specifically for equitation classes, It looks like there is a pony equitation tomorrow morning and the VHSA eq Sunday morning at Upperville. Those might be helpful to watch as there are some differences between the equitation and the hunters.
4 Likes
Two great references -
Hunter Seat Equitation, George Morris
The author is disgraced and banned from the sport for life, so you may have qualms about buying his book. It is, however, the bible of the sport and an excellent reference.
Anna Jane White-Mullen’s book on judging is the gold standard -
2 Likes
What @Pokerface said.
There are replays on the USEF Network, even Horse & Country TV has previous Equitation finals available on demand. Watch equitation finals (USEF Medal, USET, ASPCA Maclay) and listen to the commentary. You can learn a lot about what Equitation really is about by doing that. And if you have specific questions, don’t hesitate to ask. But I would avoid wasting your time looking at hunters, when in reality you need to focus on Equitation.
(Most equitation finals commentators do a good job of explaining how these skills translate to success in the hunter and jumper rings, respectively).
1 Like
Isn’t ISHA more about equitation than hunters? Not to discount anyone’s comments here, but I can’t see much connection between that and the hunters at Upperville. The first is low-level eq over fences on school horses and the other, steering six figure prepared horses over a simple course of jumps. Correct me if I’m wrong!
The title of the thread is “Need to learn more about hunters… advice?”
So the link’s pretty relevant to the title, even if the actual OP is not.
I would assume that Upperville has equitation too, doesn’t it?
Seeing what an upper level equitation class looks like is never a bad thing when you are going to be teaching someone to do equitation.
1 Like
I guess all these have in common, from IHSA to rated hunters, is the goal of consistency of pace, smoothness, arriving to the jump at a comfortable distance. Not interfering with horse. This is not so easy in IHSA in my opinion. When I did it (way back in the olden days), we had insanely fresh horses in the wee hours of New England mornings to navigate around a course of jumps. Hunters in general is about showing off the jump and movement of the horse. Good riding is of course required for this. In IHSA, I felt like it was trying to look decent in spite of a fresh or worse, unwell horse.
1 Like
Thanks! This helps!
Apologies if the title of the OP was not accurate. I was under - the apparently mistaken - impression that since Hunter classes and Eq all happened in Hunterland they were under the same umbrella. Sort of the Halter vs Showmanship classes at the local 4-H shows: one is judging the horse, the other the kid, but the fundamentals of how the kid is presenting the horse to the judge seem to be pretty much the same…
