To have an inexperienced hunt horse taken out and hunted by someone?
Would anything effect the cost? (ie age of horse, cub hunting vs formal season)
Thanks.
For the inexperienced horse, cubbing is the best time to take him out. You would of course cover the rider’s capping fee, and then what I would go by is how long the hunt usually runs–on average. I know sometimes hunts can go for a long time but you should have some idea. I would pay differently for a 2hr hunt than a 4 hr hunt. And who is doing the riding? Someone very, very experienced who would demand more or maybe an experienced but not as expensive. I don’t know how this shakes out elsewhere but for me, it is so worth it to have someone ride one while I am riding another. For a 2 hr hunt, I pay $80. I look at like this: if I were taking a lesson from a professional, it would run me $60/hr. That is how I work it in my mind. :)
Around here (Georgia) it costs around $100.00.
err… you can get paid for that?! I always thought hunt members were just trying to be nice and save me (poor college student) the extra gas $ so I wouldn’t have to bring my “psycho hunt horse” the 200 mile trip when they offered to lend me an unhunted horse (I’m seriously thought this).
I guess you just need to find an experienced riding college student (with health insurance) and “lend” them your green horse to hunt on. I think my horse is going to take this season off, so I’m going to be riding alot of greenies (since MFH is back in horse business) come January when I’m back from DC. YAY! I love greenies!
I’ve joined a hunt with no horse, and my H/J oriented coach is lending me a mare for free with the intent to sell her as a field hunter in a year or two. I paid for my hunt membership and insurance, I get a free horse and free trailering and she gets miles on a horse that would otherwise have to be sold as a dreaded “prospect”.
Free maybe!
Many of us just ask friends or fellow hunt members (the ones braver and better riders than us! :winkgrin:) if they’d do it for us. I think if you ask a “professional” like a trainer or instructor then you ought to pay. Many are grateful to do it just for the cap fee as they get to go out with a hunt period. There are many young, teenagers that would do it and give the horse a good ride too. NEVER forget them! They just love the challenge! Bless their hearts! In our area we also have plenty of folks that will take a fieldhunter in for training; which means they take them and hunt them. Period. So you’d pay whatever their monthly rate is.
I think most of the time; it’s a private matter or arrangement between you and them. Just ask! They might do it cheaper than you think; but the cap fee is always paid by the horse owner I think. JMHO. :yes:
But in general, you don’t always have to pay for crash dummies!! :lol:
Good thread I was wondering about this myself…
[QUOTE=wateryglen;3455608]
In our area we also have plenty of folks that will take a fieldhunter in for training; which means they take them and hunt them. Period. So you’d pay whatever their monthly rate is. [/QUOTE]
How do you go about finding someone if there’s no one in your immediate area? (The kind folks at my local hunt didn’t have any suggestions, although they did offer to help me find a horse to ride so I could join them again during cubbing season!) I live in NJ, but am close to NY and PA (and am a reasonable drive from DE, MD, and NoVA). I’d prefer the horse went to stay with someone for a bit, as I’m short on time to ride him at the moment and think he’d be better off if ridden more consistiently… and he has the tendency to be silly/exhuberant so he needs a good rider. How do you find someone who trains field hunters if the local hunt can’t suggest anyone?
Also… the horse needs to wear hoof boots. He’s a confirmed shoe loser (even with a good farrier and 24/7 bell boots he pulls shoes and gets sore) but does OK in boots (and is comfortable bare in the pasture). Am I going to have a hard tome finding someone who doesn’t mind dealing with his boots and won’t try and convince me to shoe him etc?
JMHO mind you…
I think the boots thing is a deal breaker IMHO. Sorry about that but if he wears them; they WILL come off hunting I think. And you can’t just stop and go looking for it. The footing is too varied and unpredictable. I think that if he’s not sound enough or has such bad feet then maybe hunting isn’t in his future. Fieldhunters need to go in less gear. Shoes or shoeless I think. It’s hard on their feet/ legs, very hard and they have to be able to hold up. Hunting will tear up bad feet quickly. Sorry to tell you!
I’d check around with all the regular hunter/jumper/eventing trainers. They know who specializes in fieldhunters. But I’m sure there’s SOMEONE in the local hunts who knows.
oooh. agreed about the boots. even bell boots are a pain in the A**. I would not touch a horse that has to hunt in hoof boots. what happens if it is muddy and some mud goes down in the boot. the horse is out galloping with the group so does not realize that his feet might hurt and then when he stops he suddenly realizes that “ouch” my feet hurt. that is not fun.
no boots for me. sorry.
I figured that would be the perception, which is why I asked :yes: I don’t think it’s necessarily the case though… they really won’t come off, you have to physically unlatch the buckles (pry with a hoofpick) and shimmy them off, it takes a bit of work (not much, but you have to be delibrately try). He has good traction in mud, grass, and pavement… not as good as a horse with studs, but just as good or better than plain steel or bare feet. Mud doesn’t get in them, and water drains right out. I take him in rivers and on varied terrain in them often, as do many trail and endurance riding friends who use similar boots, and so far so good. I know there’s one person (I forget who) on the BB who uses Bares on her horse’s back feet.
I WISH I could just put shoes on this horse, for convenience sake (regardless of what I or anyone may consider to be “ideal” he needs some kind of foot protection, especially on difficult terrain) but it just does not work. He loses them. A LOT. I spent a season of eventing dealing with lost shoes and have come to the conclusion that bare/booted is the only compromise for him, unless I learn to tack on shoes and keep multiple fitted sets on hand :lol: He’s sound in shoes (but loses them often enough to make them expensive and impractical, IMO, not to mention losing a shoe mid-hunt would also be bad) and sound in boots (and has NEVER lost one of the ones we’re using yet). I can’t see him doing hard, fast work with bare front feet at this point in time, he would be sore.
The only other think I’ve found that worked was “Perfect Hoof Wear”, and I wasn’t satisfied with the durability and how long it lasted. There might be ways to revisit it and make it work better for this horse, BUT it’s definately not a lower maintenence solution than boots, IMO.
So, no one would deal with boots (assume they would stay on securely for you as they have for me) on a horse they were asked or paid to put mileage on? What would you do for a horse that lost a lot of shoes? I found bell boots to be no problem at all (he wore Italian double thick ones 24/7 with no issues) but alas, they didn’t keep his shoes on either.
Does it matter that I would hope to do hilltopping and maybe second flight (which blend together around here in many places), not necessarily first flight? It my mind, it wouldn’t matter as much… terrain is terrain, and mud is mud, but perhaps it matters in the eyes or others?
How does he lose the shoes- does he pull them with the hind feet? I have had some luck with moving my horse to half rounds (from a COTH suggestion.) They move the point of breakover back a little and allow the horse to get his front feet out of the way of the back feet just a little quicker. Just a suggestion you could ask your farrier about.
We don’t know excatly how he loses them because obviously we can’t supervise him 24/7 :lol: but it seems he steps on himself one way or another. The last farrier to shoe him did all he could, including different shoe styles, but he still lost shoes frequently, even wearing bell boots 24/7 (I also tried slightly too big bell boots, no luck). None of the farrier’s other clients had a problem, leading me to believe it IS my horse, not the farrier. The horse’s breakover is pretty fast as it is… he also clips the back of his boots a bit (you can hear it) but because of their design (slick leather stuff over the back) it doesn’t pull them off. He actually has decent feet, it’s just a mechanical thing I guess. He’s a big mover, and a few different trainers have told me that’s just what happens with some big movers shrugs. For what it’s worth I tried foaming (like glueing) on regular EasyBoots the way endurance riders do for long rides (they typically stay on for days, or over 100 miles, from what I understand) and this horse got them off in under 8 hours STANDING IN HIS STALL. That’s just the kind of horse he is.
I’m pretty happy with the boots myself, they’ve proven to be a good solution so far. The only thing they are NOT great for is a deep sand ring (prolonged work in sand gets sand under the gaiters and rubs, at least on my horse) but since I don’t have a sand ring, and the horse isn’t showing dressage or anything right now we’ve been OK. They’ve been fine on grass, mud, pavement, and in water. I guess I need to find someone who’s not put off by them, is close enough to ride the horse and see what they think (if I tack him up, boot him, etc), or ride the darn beast myself (not out of the question, but I’m short on time and he could use a more seasoned rider in the field).
Lauren!, PM me. I hunt my horse barefoot. We rehabbed him from ringbone, sidebone, navicular and founder w/rotation over 5 degrees. He’s sound barefoot until the ground freezes, and then I use Old Macs. He’s fine out in the hunt field at a w/t/c/g, and even some small jumps. I don’t jump (yikes!) but on occasion he’s taken a fallen log or two.
Our one whip hunted his horse all last year with hoof boots, and did just fine. The horse had superior traction on the roads as well.
Contact me if you want more information. The right hoof boots are better than shoes, IMO.
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www.mfha.com/memb.htm. find hunts that are in the right regions and write a note to the secretary that explains what you are looking for. Hunts that do not have a website are listed, with addresses in the Hunt issue of COTH. (if you get stuck, maybe someone on this forum can find the address of a particular hunt for you)
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http://foxhunters.org/. subscribe and post there. very active listserve among foxhunters all over the U.S.
