What Happens at a Hunter Trial??

[chickeninabun]

I went to a pleasure ride at our local xc course yesterday but we only managed to jump two tiny logs

, as I was too nervous and not at all confident and Molly just isn't used to jumping

.
I was just wondering if you could tell me what happens at a hunter trial?
I saw the pictures of Gorgeous George at their hunter trial and it looked really good fun and the jumps looked little enough for even me to try tackling.
Do you just go round a xc course, or is there more to it? What do you wear? What height do you have to jump?

Thanks

x

 

[vallin]

they are great fun. you enter for a specific hight, so some places will do really tiny courses and others will do massive ones. Then you go walk the course (you can usually do this the day before if you want), see what the route your going to take is, look where you may have problems and think about the best way to tackle those bits. You'll have to go and pick up your number from the secretaries, then warm up just before your class is called, then once your class is called you can put your number down when you want to go, and then just ride the XC course! They're great fun and quite a few places do pairs which is great fun and really goood for new or nervous horses.
In term of attire, hat, body protector and cream jodhs and then more or less what you want! You'll need to wear your number bib over your body protector and generally us fence judges like it if your not completely in black so your easy to identify if we miss your number!
Hope that helps! Vx

 

[Libbyn1982]

We did one yesterday, was very fun! From replies I had to s similar question it seems that it can be a bit different depending on the organiser.

Ours was basically a XC course. They had three classes, one at 2'0 - 2'3, one at 2'3 - 2'6' and one at 2'9 - 3'0. We had to wear beige jods, xc shirt with long sleeves, bodt protector, long boots, hat with removeable cover - no fixed peaks and a medical arm band- which we had to make out of a sandwich bag and some selotape!!
The course was run over an optium time with the winner being closest to it. We had allocated start times like an XC though rather than declaring before hand.