I find this hard to believe! Video?
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Not that I know of.
I’ll look into it I might be able to find him.
I don’t think I ever looked through his USEF so it might be possible that I was exaggerated to. I was just an assistant at the time. But that’s definitely the story I was told. But you know stories evolve over time lol.
At the risk of a flaming I will say this regarding pre adult hunters. I ride a lovely horse. Complete package of a hunter in suitability and manners. No drugs perfect prep or otherwise. No lunging. Just a walk around or a hack in the morning. It’s who he is. Does he jump
In better snappy dolphin form over 3-4 foot with a pro. Absolutely. But I’m almost 60. And I can’t ride like I used to. It hurts. So I do the small stuff. I never quite get the disdain for those of us who still show up. On horses that would be in a different level with a younger rider or a pro. We show up. We support. We have an amazing time. We coddle our horses. We treasure them. And trust me. If I pull or kick or don’t ride correctly I can’t execute the beauty that is a well ridden hunter course. He’s not a machine. He’s a horse. An honest horse who totes my old ass around and can lay it down as long as I do.
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He sounds like the kind of horse who should be winning the pre-adults, and the kind all of us would be blessed to have in our lives.
The pre-adult/children’s, local 2’6” kind of a horse does not need to jump a 10 every time and probably shouldn’t. They do need to be kind and mannerly and make the judge want to give them a peppermint just for existing. I feel like this type of division epitomizes the idea that the winner should be the horse the judge wants to ride (in the hunt field, or otherwise.) In this division I want to see a horse going around in a relaxed and mannerly way, making 8 jumps and 100 canter steps all look about the same, in a basically correct but not flamboyant fashion. If they do that then it doesn’t matter if the over fences photo isn’t amazing because the horse will amass a lot of photos in the winner’s circle.
I’m biased- my own horse is more of a jumper in his style in that he’s correct but efficient, and the only time in his life he was the winner in the hunter ring was when he did the local 2’6”. He went around like a big blown up large children’s pony with a cheerful and workmanlike expression and loped the jumps.
To keep this on topic, he did it braided a couple of times, despite his best efforts, because my darling boy could take his braids out in 15 minutes on the trailer on the way to a horse show. And did.
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For you young sprouts, this is what we aspired to achieve way back when. (Not mine, this scrumptious thing belongs to a friend.)
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I own the mare version of your horse! She was a 3’6" horse until an injury ended that career. Now she totes me around the 2’-2’6" (depending the state of my nerves!). No prep. No funny business. Can win the hack still, but over those wee fences? Not the snappiest of jumps. But, she hunts the line out of the corner, makes the step look easy (sometimes too well…woah, missy!). She’s kind, pretty, calm and the sweetest lady ever. However, she requires you to ride, not just sit there. She challenges my skills in a good way. I am grateful every single day for her. There’s a reason these packer types are so expensive! But I’m old and I deserve to be safe and still have to work a bit.
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Amen! She sounds like a dream 
The first year I showed at Devon there were 75 entries in the Large Pony division.
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And they showed at 3’ !
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Do they not show at 3’ now? 
Pretty sure most are showing at 2’9” in the regular larges these days with the rule book specifying 2’9” - 3’, but it seems that upper range is only used at the bigger competitions.
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Thank you for the info. I had no idea. Way back when I was showing ponies, Sindy Paul’s Squeaky, who was 11.2, showed and won jumping 2’6" with the rest of the small ponies. Keswick at 13.2 handled 3’ fences easily.
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Stunning!
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Even as a kid back in the 1970s watching conformation hunters at the Del Mar Fair, I knew they were something extra special. And enough of them to fill a variety of classes (years competing, small vs large etc.) I should mention that that show was not a typical “fair” show; it attracted the best, from hunters to Morgans to stock horses, and everything else.
When I returned to riding in late 2006 after a 25 year break, one of first horses I rode a lot had been pointed at the small conformation hunters in the mid 1980s until she had a paddock accident that left her with a blemished hock. Pure TB of course, and really a lovely old mare, if slightly quirky.
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I remember that! I was in the stands and loving how well the colored yarn accented particular horse colors.
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