Talk to me about Working Hunter

[Hayday]

Hi everyone, I will be bringing my horses over mid summer from Canada and well I must say our Hunter Classes in Canada seem VERY different than those in the UK. My only experiences with working hunter in the Uk have been from youtube videos and watching a flat class at the Yorkshire show several years ago (Which I had no idea what was going on, do they look at conformation too?) Can someone please elaborate as to how the working hunter works? or send me in the right direction (links, videos, books)
How many over fence classes do you do an average show, what about the flat classes?
How are they judged?
What are the different levels? (are there schooling levels and national?)
Attire and tack required (I noticed on most tack websites there are specific saddles? and no numnahs?)
Lastly, what are some top hunter coaches in the North East that travel to shows and give lessons?

Thank you!

 

[emmab13]

Gosh where to begin?
Workers at local level is pretty simple. Turn up, enter, jump round a course of rustic fences. Clears (or if there are no clears, the best of the rest) go through to the next phase. You all go round together showing W/T/C on both reins, gallop on one.

Then, depending on how strict show is being, either individual show with gallop or judge rides, then strip for conformation, then trot up in hand. Then get back on and be placed.

County is rather different. For open classes, at 3'9'' or above, horses, riders and owners must be registered with SHB(GB). If you get through to the second part you will have the 'go round', as above, then your horse will be ridden by the judge, stripped and assessed for conformation. It can get VERY serious!

I hope this explains it a bit!

 

[Missadelaide]

Hi,

I'm probably not the best person to answer this but seeing as you had no other replies, I will give you my best, but haven't done any working hunter's for a while.

With the working hunter class, you go in individually first off and jump a course of natural fences. For this you can have a martingale and boots but they must come off before the flat section. Next, you all go in and ride around together (minus boots and martingales) and will then be pulled into a preliminary order, an individual show follows this, then saddle comes off and the horse is trotted up for the judge for conformation. Following this, a final order will be made. It is my personal belief that you get penalised quite heavily for jumping faults.

As for tack - plain saddle and bridle, no coloured browbands. If you have a working hunter saddle then great, if not I use my jumping one. The numnah must closely match the horse in colour or go without a numnah. Tweed jacket for you with cream or yellow breeches.

I hope this helps somewhat, good luck with the move! x

 

[sbloom]

Hunter classes in North America have almost nothing in common with working hunter in the UK to be honest - you might find the odd "Equitation Jumping" class at the odd riding club show but that is the closest you'll find, unless someone can put me right. The rider's style is not officially considered in WH, but the horse's style is, as you've gathered, but they must also be judged on conformation.

You will find the odd showing coach, the top riders tend to train at clinics etc, but you'll find nothing like a hunter barn with resident coach, it just doesn't work that way here.

If you decide to go the jumper route, British Showjumping is the official body here, then you'll find plenty of trainers, but again, residence at a barn (livery yard) isn't that common.

I'd post photos of your horse on here to see whether he/she might be suitable for WH classes - if so you can use your CC saddle, though tan coloured saddles aren't really seen in the show ring here, but a specific WH saddle is more common - straighter cut to allow the shoulder to be shown off to the conformation judge. You have to jump in the same saddle as you do the flat class in, and we are seeing more jump/AP (called general purpose or GP here) saddles but they need to be neat and unobtrusive.

Rider dress is also different - no collars but shirt and tie, no snot green coloured breeches either , beige (tan in the US and Canada) or creamier colours or even a deep yellowish colour called canary. Field boots are seldom seen either - the dress here is all about the hunting field which is very traditional. Curved top boots are seen a little more often, but ideally boots should be plain and straight topped with a garter strap (and hunting thing that helps keep boots on, now mainly for show rather than function!).

In terms of level, we don't have single national bodies as you do in the US/Canada - you can compete at a myriad of different kinds of local show, organised by riding clubs, agriculatural societies etc, but then at the higher level as mentioned, you join the official body and compete in their qualifiers which I believe are all national, no regional structure, though again I might be wrong. You will qualify for shows such as Horse of the Year, Royal International Horse Show or Olympia. As with most horse sports in the UK it is "unaffiliated" when not part of an offical body, or affiliated when it is, though these terms are used much more for dressage, SJ, eventing. Membership of the official bodies isn't cheap, neither are entry fees.

Hope that helps.

 

[kworth]

With the working hunter class, you go in individually first off and jump a course of natural fences. For this you can have a martingale and boots but they must come off before the flat section. Next, you all go in and ride around together (minus boots and martingales) and will then be pulled into a preliminary order x

You must remove the boots, but the martingale must stay on if you are competing under SHB rules. Also, the horse should only wear front boots!

 

[Hayday]

Thank you so much! This really helps, one question though, if the Judge rides your horse are there not liability issues? or are you covered through your memberships? I like how the judge seems to be more involved, You are not allowed to speak to Judges in Canada and they usually Judge the flat class from a booth at the side of the ring.

Here are videos of what I am doing now, my horse is 17.3, 12 years old, currently ridden and jumped in a loose ring snaffle and martingale and we compete at what would be our national level, 3 foot Amatuer Owner class (restricted to amateur riders who own their horse, not co-owned as many are).

This first video taken at a show about 2 weeks ago is a Handy Hunter Class which is probably the closest thing we have to working hunter, judge on style and how efficiently you ride the course.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4mx4Y74OC0

The Second our traditional hunter class

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2byr6SDY1I

I am still trying to figure out how to post pictures! So I will post them soon!

Anyway do you think we would be able to do Working Hunter? What level do you think he would be suitable for?

Thanks!

 

[MissSBird]

There have been rare cases of ride judges sueing because of falls from horses they are riding in classes. Thankfully these are not common. There are two ways to protect yourself in this instance:

1) Make sure your horse is ready for ride judges. Get lots of different riders onto him so he'll be used to suddenly having to perform for a stranger who'll push slightly different buttons thank you.
2) Insurance. The sporting bodies of showing will not cover you for this occurance. It is up to you to have adequate insurance to cover yourself should any rider you have given permission to ride fall from your horse.

Like I said, thankfully the sueing cases have been very rare, and there has been a recent change in legal cases involving horse riders falling. In general, more court judges seem to be taking the stance that if you choose to sit on a horse you accept the risk.

In showing here the levels generally go like this - local/riding club level, small county, big county, major championships. But, there isn't really a clear line of progression with them. You'll often get people competing across quite a few of these levels.

In my opinion, I don't think your horse has enough bone for the higher level working hunter classes here. Our hunters tend to be much heavier and broader than in the States/Canada. At the lowest level (what we call riding club/local level, about equivilant to your training shows), you could do well simply because your horse looks like a lovely well mannered ride, which will stand you in good stead.

At higher levels, I personally think he could do riding horse classes though. These are our flat ridden classes for horses that are lighter than hunters.

Where abouts are you moving to OP? Ideally, you need to try and tag along to a showing show with someone who knows how it all works so they can sit down with you and explain it all. I know I can't get my head around showing in the states and Canada, despite my friend's attempts to explain it to me. I can't imagine how confusing it must be to come the opposite direction!

 

[JFTDWS]

I am the least qualified person to comment on showing in the world I reckon, but my one comment would be that if you see a "handy pony" class on a schedule over here, don't mistakenly believe it might be similar to your "handy hunter" classes over in Canada...

You're more likely to be asked to wave a flag whilst trotting through some eccentrically styled bending poles than to jump a course of fences