Holy crap! 4 divisions in a single horse show? A lot of hunters get a lot of prep (the 40 mins of riding post some lunging), but that many classes is insane. Never seen it. Maybe for a young horse?
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Or the horror of getting back to your hotel room alone to discover you’re still wearing your boots! (Did that once. Took ages to get off by wedging under the sofa!)
Or the inability to take your boots off once on at a show because your legs swell and there isn’t a pair of nylons (or bottle of baby powder or showsheen) in the world that’s getting those suckers back on.
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Yeah, maybe just a youngin who just needs to do it over and over again?? I think it matters a lot less at the 2’6’’ and under where it’s just speed bumps, but I still think a horse would be mentally exhausted by the end of all that.
I also was just chatting with a friend about this thread who said that frequently trainers will enter a horse in EVERYTHING they think they might show in and then cancel a bunch. So Dobbin may be entered in 4 o/f and two u/s on Thursday but in reality just does 2 o/f classes, behaves, and calls it a day. Maybe that’s what I’m seeing 
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Best surprises/discoveries:
Boots with zippers
Off the rack “Semi-custom” boot options that fit me (I’m tall).
Mid- and high-rise breeches (especially the ones in compression fabrics that feel like yoga pants!)
Tech fabrics, especially Sun shirts and mesh inserts
More comfortable saddles (though don’t love their prices!)
Knotless hairnets.
Everyone wears helmets all the time, and they are much safer! I gasp now when I see someone riding without one.
Acceptance in H/J of safety vests.
The acceptance (by some) of hair out of the helmet vs up.
Online shopping, especially the upstart brands that often have affordable products (especially for human clothes) and the ability to purchase things online easily from other countries.
Other surprises:
The amount of showing people do (and we did quite a lot as a kid).
How much jumping at home some people do.
How much prep some people do, both for shows and at home.
That table II, 2a seems to have largely disappeared from the jumpers, at least at lower levels.
No more “barn rats”.
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I forgot about knotless hair nets–that is has been an enormous game changer for me. I used to get actual sores on my forehead from the original ones. Nightmarish!
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Oh, did you ever nail it. I think I still have indents in my head from bobby pins. And the dent in my forehead. And we were so protected, right
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Those WBs must be bored to tears.
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Many of the shows don’t allow day-off adds, but do give you entry money back as long as you scratch before the class starts. So people will enter extra classes just in case the class gets moved from the ring you want to school in to another ring, the class goes really late, or there’s a horse issue.
Having said that, I do see horses doing a pro division plus warmups plus two divisions with the client.
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Blockquote Along the same lines, my trainer (late 1960s) used to say “if your horse stops at a jump, don’t make it easy for him, make it harder.” We were allowed to back up three steps, then had to go from there (basically one stride and these were 3’ and up fences). It drives me crazy now to see riders have a refusal in a class and circle around half the ring before approaching the jump again.
You know after I figured out my horse can and does jump 3’ verticals from a standstill, I got a lot firmer in my convictions making sure we got over, even if the distance wasn’t ideal. Which was good for my confidence and for his green bean self. But like that’s something you’ve just got to experience–without being detrimental to the horse (thinking of hitting them in the mouth or falling back)–to really believe.
I don’t know how you train that though apart from what my trainer did which was simply telling me to kick him and pop him over one day. Or making folks trot 3’ fences (I did have an old trainer do that one lesson).
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Fence heights.
Everything is more safety oriented. Anyone else just disappear on your bike (or horse) all day when you were a kid? Without a helmet… Go to the beach alone? Ride in the back of a pickup truck? Drink out of a hose? Warm up in a barn aisle (or was this just a California thing)?
Cars are safer. People wear helmets to ride bikes, horses, skateboards, etc. Seat belts and kid car seats are mandated.
So people want a safer riding experience.
I think that things do spiral downward. If there’s no one in your barn jumping 1.2 m then 90 cm is going to look bigger. If no one is jumping over 90 cm in your barn, it’s hard to be that one person who jumps 1 m or 1.1 m.
Plus the lower divisions are available.
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I remember an Anne Kursinski clinic in the mid/late 1980’s (back when people were invited to clinics) and everyone had to walk 3 ft fences, even stone walls.
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I didn’t show much as a kid so my observations were all about horse care. From the 1970s to the oughts a bunch of things improved. Nutrition and supplements and how to feed. Hoof care and balancing. Vet care and imaging. Quality of turnout blankets. Saddle fit of course. Ideas about horse training and behavior. The invention of hoof boots. DNA testing and understanding of color genetics.
On the other hand, the quality of leather has plumetted (same in shoes and handbags) and riders on average are more skilled but less brave and independent in my world.
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My trainers used to make us walk 3’6" fences, as that was a test that could be assigned in an eq. class. Hah- they also taught us how to vault onto a horse from the ground. Try doing either of those things on a greenie, which was all I ever had as a junior! I was…not good at the vaulting, let’s say, but walking a 3’6" jump on a horse who had the goods to do the Regular Workings really wasn’t hard once you understood how to deal with the physics of it.
I switched from hunters to jumpers when I got back into riding about 20 years ago as an adult. One reason was that I no longer had my parents’ wallet, and nice AO hunters were WAAAAY out of my price range. The other was that I found the hunters as they had developed since I was a kid less interesting than the jumpers. The jumpers got more inviting, and (to me) the hunters less so.
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I recently found a 2005 Dover catalog stashed away, and was honestly amazed by how few digestive/ulcer supplements there were.
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A few years ago one of the kids at the barn wound up with a pair of hand-me-down pull-on boots that fit her lovely. It was hysterical watching all the kids’ faces as the adults taught them how to help her get her boots off. Yes children, not only did we used to walk up hill to school both ways in a snow storm and not have cell phones, but we also used to have to pry each other’s tall boots off with our own body strength at the end of each show day.
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Reminded me of the lovely black wool huntcoat I was gifted by my Aunt.
Who, along with my Dad, rode livery horses through Chicago’s Lincoln Park in the 1930s.
Said coat grudgingly accepted by teenaged Me, as all the Kewl Kids were wearing Madras plaid 
I had that coat long after I stopped riding & often wished I’d kept it when I became a re-rider in my 30s 
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I’m not disagreeing here. I have a few extras to add;
With the huge emphasis on hunters, and most local shows not offering anything over 2’9/3ft, why train the kids to jump higher? The higher the jump the more likely there’s injury. It’s not uncommon to have 30+ 2ft entries.
Even the local jumper classes have trouble filling classes above 3ft.
I’m not sure if it’s bad or not. On one hand, it’s a little sad that the only people who find the big sticks attainable are people who bought giant warmbloods and have the $$$ to go to the winter circuit for the whole season.
On the other hand, the horses don’t care and if the riders feel accomplished jumping 2ft, does it matter?
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Honestly, I think this is just the new reality for the vast majority of riders today. They’re doing the best they can under the conditions in which they find themselves. Most riders today live with limited riding time, limited funds, and a lack of availability of higher level horses and instructors. Jumping 2 - 2.5 feet is where they are going to max out under those circumstances. It’s just a fact of life today.
Jumping the big stuff is, for the most part, limited to those who have access to top level trainers (the number of which is diminishing over time) and have the time, money, and desire to take advantage of that access.
And please don’t think I’m complaining or criticizing. This little old lady is very happy to bop around a 2 ft course on my very, very low 5 figure horse and yes, I feel very accomplished when I manage to do so without screwing anything up. 
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Joseph Fennell, of Cynthiana, Ky, is credited with inventing the modern horse boot in 1883
https://www.fennells.com/about-our-company.html
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I don’t know when this changed, but I also think barns that train kids at the 3’6’’ and up are more niche, and more $$$, and therefore less accessible. Even 20 years ago the 3’6’’ was still a BIG DEAL at the barns I rode at (which were the less expensive barns in my area that still showed and had somewhat of a program - using that term loosely). And the kids that started to eye that level all left to ride elsewhere, because the training wasn’t really going to make you competitive once you were consistently successful at the 3ft level. And as someone who couldn’t afford to go elsewhere, I feel like I was priced out of moving up more by the cost of the barns that had instructors who taught to that level. The horse cost too of course, but I could have afforded (and did afford) a lease a on a 1.10/1.15 jumper, and then just didn’t have the trainer or the barn that could teach me to be successful at the height.
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