More questions.
Why don’t breeches come with elastic stirrups? Wouldn’t that make all the sense in the world to keep them from riding up?
Because riding up is rarely an issue with the cut and materials we use now, plus the idea of stirrups (as a tall person) sound horridly uncomfortable.
How is it acceptable to wear smooth half-chaps over paddock boots when showing? I’m not criticizing this AT ALL. But I think back 20, 25 years and how a judge, taking one look at that, would have eliminated. I mean, was some kind of official declaration made?
It’s not truly acceptable. Some people do it in a pinch. People who show regularly generally do not show in half chaps. The sample size of 1 does not make it a regular thing.
Does anyone else find GM’s “Hunter Seat Equitation” impossible to get through? Just a big yawn, start to finish?
GM is full of himself and loves to talk about himself and the famous people, most of us have moved on from him and give more attention to professionals who are more horse-centered. GM may call himself a horseman, but the reality is, he has never been strongly involved in the “horse care” aspect, and he has openly said he leaves that stuff to others. I prefer to give favor to professionals who involved in all aspects of their horse’s care. Not to mention all of the other things he’s recently been accused of.
Finally – and I need to be really careful here – what is the enduring allure of hunters? Not a criticism, but genuinely curious.
I got bored with it so long ago. Where I live, actual hunts are a mere shadow of what they were, and they barely existed when I was riding as a kid 40 years ago. How many people competing in hunters have actually participated in a hunt, even a drag hunt? How many of these six-figure horses have raced across an unmowed field, with all its divots and stray rocks and 100 other hazards that I cringe to think about, in an age when your coach gets nuts about potential for a stone bruise while walking a trail?
Toward the end of when I stopped riding more than 20 years ago, I was struggling to identify why, precisely, I was bouncing around the ring on a horse that COULD be suitable for hunting IF hunting, you know, existed. We weren’t even on an outside course. I mean, it’s fenced sand rings, for heaven’s sake, and not a single hound in sight, let alone a pack of them carrying on. I had spent all this money on braids so the animal’s mane and tail wouldn’t get caught on anything – if we happened to be in wide-open country. I was heading for jumps that didn’t look remotely like anything we’d encounter in the wild. Heck, I was never in an actual hunt myself. The closest I got was pitching in on the ground as a kid. And if I had the opportunity, would I ride in one today? Setting aside my distaste for the chasing of the poor quarry, I’ll say this: Not on your life. Simply too much injury risk.
Is this the draw: Hunters exists to connect us with a tradition from long ago, with standards that have remained more or less timeless? I’m thinking of, say, the most ancient of the Olympic track and field pursuits --> “We run because we’ve always run.” Do we judge hunter performances of 50 or even 75 years ago by more or less the same standards now? Or inwardly do we snicker – or perhaps ache with the longing of yesteryear – and say, “That would never fly today.”
And then what I come back to is “timeless.” The hunt caps no longer are strictly velveteen. The boots can be paddock shoes and half-chaps. Tack rules change. We debate white shirts or barely pastel, with pinstripes. The stock tie – whose initial purpose was as an emergency field bandage – is gone, as is the stock pin [which frankly always terrified me because I was certain it would undo itself and stab me in the throat] and now, from what I gather, the monogram is over. We spent decades in utter discomfort, bound up in wool jackets, long-sleeve shirts and unvented helmets, because this was our sport, and by God, we were soldiers marching through good conditions or bad – and now we embrace performance fabrics.
I am stunned to see the fall of institutions that were our base for, in some cases, 100 years or more. Miller’s and Beval. Other independent brands snapped up by venture capital and merged under one owner. Still other brands that have maintained all of the name and none of the quality. Further, the emergence of super-high-end saddle makers in a trade that once touted their products’ decades-long durability, and now are proud of materials so delicate that the use of chaps voids their warranty. I recall when $5,000 would buy not one, but two saddles that would last a lifetime and then some.
Sigh.
Your turn.
.
… I often tell my mother that, if we had known about this back in the old days, she wouldn’t have refused to pay the TS premium.
