SO did the dishes while I rode and did barn work. He is also manning the farm while I am showing this weekend. He is def broke by horse woman standards.
21 Likes
Practice. Look at a course diagram, learn it, and ride in your head. Also memorize what way you turn after each jump. That way if you have a memory lapse you’re hopefully heading in the right direction.
4 Likes
Speaking as a person who was firmly convinced she could never remember anything other than four lines and a single, there is hope… I switched to combined driving and jumper courses have nothing on the brain teaser that is remembering your obstacle routes and backup plans, followed by walking a cones course when you are dead tired but still psyched from marathon. And cones course really have no rhyme or reason on where the next come will be compared to jumper courses!
But when I started it was HARD, and that was the lower levels. But it’s something you get used to pretty quickly once you are doing it. Now I find remembering the course pretty easy. So if an ex HP who used to scope out the eq courses in the am to see if it was just one of the hunter trips (yay, warm up class!) or an actual eq class (hard pass) can learn CDE courses, there’s hope for us all!
Note: using an eq class as a warm-up option shows just how old I am. Yes children, there was a time when there were not any warm-up classes. 
11 Likes
Holy crap! My budget is 4 showing shows a year. But I max out my 401 k. Priorities.
4 Likes
I always panic, but somehow it’s gotten easier and easier! Plus we get to walk our courses. It’s not scary, I promise (and it’s WAY fun!). Come, join the dark side. It’s cheaper and fun!
5 Likes
You can do it! I honestly find jumper courses easier to remember because the fences are usually pretty colorful/decorated and thus fairly distinctive—at my last show I was remembering courses via things like “whiskey barrels to trees to red bending line to horse heads.” I have terrible short-term visual memory thanks to a concussion so if I can make it work I have full faith in everyone else.
3 Likes
Also in Texas, also work full time, also aim for 9-10 shows per year. And even though I can afford it, I am constantly questioning the wisdom of spending that much money every year on horse shows. And my horses are at my house so I don’t pay full training board. But, hay, grain, and shavings have gotten CRAZY expensive. I often consider selling my 2 show horses, just keeping the 2 retirees and the 1little mare that probably wouldn’t find a great home and start going on nice vacations instead of horse shows. Lol
Even if I could show 24 weeks out of the year, I don’t think I’d ask my horse to show that much. That is a LOT of jumps and a LOT of standing in a stall. No thank you.
10 Likes
Totally. I remember courses I jumped two weeks ago because the jumper courses are so distinctive.
2 Likes
Screw the money, how the hell do you find the TIME??
19 Likes
Coming from eventing and dressage world, I can’t imagine any of this. From the insane board plus training plus fees plus everything else, being required to show at X amount of shows (with X being a wild amount), to the trainer just taking your horse to a show and showing them during the week without you, it’s a totally different world. It’s pretty fascinating, I have no idea how any of you do it, horses or riders. I’m pretty much a zombie by the end of a weekend show once every few months. I’d be in a permanently undead state if I had to show that much.
What is it about hunters, specifically, that leads people to pay such exorbitant amounts for so much stress? It seems like most of the people that compete don’t even get much from it, as far as ribbons and placing goes. Maybe the high end ones like described are all coming home with tons of ribbons, but most of the hunters I’ve talked to, it seems like you are lucky to place with even a perfect round. Maybe that’s just lower-end programs though?
18 Likes
It’s always a mistake to diss other disciplines. Just because it’s not the way you’re used to doing things does not make it invalid. You’re free to “not understand”.
Folks show hunters, in particular, for many reasons. I show hunters (and have had my pro ride my horse in divisions during the week while I’m not there) for the challenge of riding 8 (or more) perfect fences. And even when I’m going in against folks who have far more monetary resources than I, it’s about how well I can execute on a given day. I may be completely out of the ribbons, but if I have a breakthrough, that’s a win.
It’s all in how you look at it.
9 Likes
I…100% am not dissing it. I’m genuinely curious. Like, dressage, you can work up the levels or go for medals if you don’t have a competitive horse. Similar for eventing. And the pricing and culture is so different. I’m just curious how hunters is the way it is, to where it’s so popular and so expensive. That’s not dissing it at all. And you gave me an answer, the challenge of a course of perfect fences and all of the work that goes towards it. So thank you.
20 Likes
I didn’t think your response was “dissing”, but we’ve gotten a lot of hate for the hunters here recently - I can see how many hunter riders (including myself!) might be a little defensive. But I didn’t think your post was that!
That said, a well ridden hunter round on a good horse is a thrill and a challenge. I think it’s an easy discipline to hate on or simply not understand until you’ve sat on a true hunter-type horse and tried it. Hunters are 0% fun on a horse not suited or not trained for it 
. It’s a discipline for perfectionists who want to jump, IMO.
H/J is very accessible for the newbie kid and busy amateur. It is trying very hard to price out most of us, however, it is the big high end show barns that are never full in my area. The middle of the road, C and A shows with just a lesson requirement and a couple school horses are FULL and in high demand.
6 Likes
Yes. After largely focusing on a jumper for the last 18 months, I just got another horse who is 100% hunter through and through. I jumped him for the first time yesterday, and I cannot. stop. thinking. about what those two jumps felt like. He snapped his knees, was slow in the air, and landed and loped away… It’s very different from just “jumping around.” That’s what hunters is about, IMO… Once you ride a good one and know that feeling, it’s addictive—much in the same way a lightning-fast jump-off round is on my other horse, or I suspect, going cross-country or nailing a piaffe.
7 Likes
Coming from dressage-land, I don’t think (most? many?) of us asking questions are questioning the beauty of a well-ridden hunter round, or the challenge of producing and riding such a horse. I could never do it in a million years, and some of the most incredibly talented horsewomen I’ve ever met honed their skills in that world.
It’s more the culture at many UL hunter barns, however, that seem to wrest so much control away from ammies like the OP allegedy in the pursuit of that perfection which can deprive riders of a lot of control over their horses–everything from how often they show, to if they are “allowed” to ride their horse at all at certain shows or even just for fun. I know that this isn’t the case at all mid-level hunter-focused barns, but given the way the industry is evolving, sadly many of those barns are closing or are becoming more focused on higher-end showing. Even if I was very well-heeled, I just wouldn’t want to feel pressured to show every weekend, and I don’t think it would give me enough time to soak in what I learned.
17 Likes
I got to do a class in the GP ring this week. Way easier to remember Madonna to Keith Haring to cookies to mental health etc. than the color variations in the lower jumper ring. But that’s easier than the more monochromatic hunter jumps, especially the horror of coming around the turn and being confronted with a seeming wall of nearly identical white jumps. Or looking at a line one way where it’s yellow flowers, only to have the opposite direction be red flowers—more of an issue at smaller shows with less-fancy fill.
1 Like
That would make sense. We have a couple of hunter gals that just moved to the barn I’m at, I adore their horses (and them!) and watching them go around. Their trainer comes out to teach them, but he does more than just hunters (I’ve taken some jumper lessons with him) and even takes on some horses for a very BN eventer to school sometimes, and is a super nice, chill dude. They are all pretty laid back actually, but even then its still such a different life (horses will stay up a couple days before shipping out, can’t come in with any blemishes so they go out on an alternative schedule so it’s just them two together, coach picks up the horses to take to the shows and they go later). I remember thinking how different it was, but that was apparently nothing compared to other places
Heck if I was still skinny and my horse wasn’t a hony, I’d have loved to try hunters. She’s got the absolute cutest tight little knees and can jump around quite lovely IF you can keep her in rhythm and contain the beast. But she also can be very… expressive, and much prefers to Ricky Bobby her way around if allowed, so we never went that direction
3 Likes
Very often, the more cash you have the less time you have. Either because you are working a demanding job, or you are living a wealthy lifestyle that requires you to keep up some social life and go on luxe vacations with family.,etc.
For whatever reason, adult hunters has expanded the wrap around junior model to support adult ammies with more money than time. I think it is harder to do well in dressage or cross country or even more ambitious jumping with big time constraints on your saddle time.
The Western Pleasure and saddle seat worlds also have niches like these, where the owner can just turn up and show.
Obviously the horse is getting exemplary care on the daily according to the standards of whatever discipline, so as an owner you don’t have those guilty moments, like thinking about your retired horse in a field in the rain.
It’s not a model I could afford or even want, but I’m not going to diss it because everybody needs a horse 
but not everyone can do hands-on self care.
And obviously some trainers work hard to get a niche in super wealthy clients, and who wouldn’t love getting paid a living wage to to take care of excellent horses with fairly hands-off owners?
9 Likes
Do what?
3 Likes
This is true.
I was DIY as teen and now as adult. It’s hard to imagine horses inside a program.
Its possible that the full program model developed for juniors is inherently infantilizing and that adults revert back to their tween selves when a trainer starts barking “heels down!” at them again.
3 Likes
