I’m just considering doing local equitation and hunter derbies. He’s a very nice mover with a big stride. My other jumper who turned 20 this year, is the total opposite. Not a very nice mover, shorter stride, not automatic lead changes (I can get them when I ask correctly), but does fairly well in the local eq and hunter derbies. That being said, he is very quiet. I recently stepped him down from 3ft to 2’6 as he’s getting older and is more comfortable at that height. The only problem is we run into eligibility issues as I show in the high adults with my 1.25m/1.35m jumper. So there isn’t much equitation (or even hunter derbies) I’m allowed to. Hence why I’m playing around with my high adult horse to see if we can get him quiet enough to do the local eq and hunter derbies.
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If you can get him quieter then I’d suggest no martingale if you don’t want to use a standing. But I’m not sure how a properly adjusted standing would impact the horse on landing, as it doesn’t do anything when the head is down. Flinging the head up on landing isn’t going to be competitive in the hunters. As others have said, if you need your running to be effective, and assuming it’s also not adjusted too short, the horse is probably doing something undesirable for these classes.
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