As a funny aside… I grew up showing in NC, SC, GA, East and Middle TN. I lived in Charlotte, NC during my short stirrup and very first pony days. Jack Towell was at a lot of the Mecklenburg Hounds shows, even if it was just to take green horses to some bigger “schooling” shows. I remember the day Liza Boyd made her public debut on a pony. Jack and Elizabeth were very loved by everybody. We’d all been waiting to see Liza ride one day because we’d all gotten invested in her mom’s pregnancy, like we were part of their family. 😂 When the big day came, word spread the show grounds like a celebrity had shown up! It wasn’t like she was showing, she was just chilling by the ring, hanging out on a pony either Jack or Elizabeth was leading while the other had their arm around her, making sure she was safe. I don’t remember how old she was, but OH! MY! GOSH!, she was DARLING!!! Fringed chaps were rollin strong at the time, so of course, Liza had a tiny pair of chaps with metallic shiny, multi-colored fringe. We’re talking she was maaaaybe 2, possibly younger? I will NEVER forget seeing her. I can picture it like it was yesterday! Well, the only thing that’s not fuzzy is her in her chaps, but that’s enough. 😂
@@MHPEquestrian I still have mine!! They were “shelf” chaps that I somehow eventually talked my parents into adding fringe, initials, good zippers and alterations for my bday. 🤣 I also have the pair I got after them, but they didn’t have fringe. Somebody never picked up their customs so I got them for a song and paid for a few alterations. Helluva deal! I couldn’t get rid of them after that.
I’m late getting here (2024!😊) so I’m not sure if you’ll see this, but hopefully so. The high options are 3ft5? They look HUGE, like at least 4ft! That means the low options are 3ft? That’s large pony height? Granted, I showed many years ago and things have definitely changed, but I finished on a large pony and didn’t have access to a horse so my 1 attempt at 15-17eq, at 3ft6, was more than enough for me and my 14h scrapper of a pony. He loved it! I did not. lol. In fact, I pulled up at the gate and never finished. It was so embarrassing. It was a big summer A show at KY Horse Park. The class had over 30 of us in it. I slunk back to my stall and bawled. ANYhoo! Do Jr Hunters still do 3’6? Working Hunter used to do 3’6-4’. That’s been changed to High Performance or something like that, right? Are they still doing 4’? If so, why are the Derby horses doing 3’-3’5? I thought the Derby horses were supposed to be the top 10% of the top 10%. They sure look it! 🤩 But if they can trot a 3’ jump, why make the low options close to the same size? Seems like the High Performance hunters would be the better athletes if they’re still jumping 4’? Please don’t get me wrong, as a short stirrup kid in the late 70’s who got to watch mostly Thorobreds in the Working Hunters, in open fields, carrying a pace that would never work today, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the newer style Derby’s where riders like Kelly Farmer are much more aggressive with their pace! I also love that the judges are making it clear that that’s what they’re looking for. I recently watched the replay of the Derby Gran Prix held at one of the Florida shows. THEY EVEN PLAYED CRAZY TRAIN WHILE SOMEONE WAS ON COURSE! It was awesome! Lately I’ve been watching any Derby’s I can find, no matter how old they are. As a one time foxhunter, these courses and going back to showing in sprawling grass rings makes my day!! Roll tops, logs and brush boxes, oh my!! lol
Yes the jr hunters now have to hights its not 3’3 and 3’6. Kinda of crazy but I get it. Moving from the children’s hunter at 3ft to 3’6” in the jrs was a big jump haha so adding the 3’3 is kind of nice
Were the Sm Jrs 3’3? Idk. I stuck to my pony ring. lol My parents thought I’d have grown out of it by the time I outgrew my pony so there was no horse on my horizon. 😏 Looking back at pics of him, he was a lot cuter than I gave him credit for! At 14h though, he wasn’t a good enough mover to really hang at the A shows. He KILLED it in the short stirrup and held his own in LrgPH over fences, but we were never bringing home tri-colors at anything big enough to draw the big names of the time. At least it was fun to watch them go and wish.
I just realized why the fences looked so much bigger than 3’6 to me! It’s the International Derby that’s 4ft! 🤦🏻♀️ Not having shown in yeeeeeeeears, I forgot there’s 2 different levels of Derbies that the pro’s and bigger jr’s do, that I’ll typically find posted in its entirety. You even said something about that! 😂 I think I got distracted by the cool course that had the fence on the grass hill. 🫠😁 I’d never be able to jump 4ft on purpose, over and over, so I LOVE seeing the working Hunter/high performance horses go. Since it’s just you and me, and I never get to talk about horses anymore, can I ramble on with what I mean when I say “on purpose”? I guess I miss riding more than I realized. 😁 Alas, I’m now in a small midwestern town where nobody’s seen an English saddle unless it’s the local QH’s that only do flat work and trainers I wouldn’t take a goat to, much less give them my money. 😬 Here comes my rambling story from the early 90’s… From ~92-96, I was in my fox hunting phase. I stumbled into it after I had to quit riding because I’d graduated college and bills are real. lol One day, I literally passed an old friend on the highway, we rolled down our windows, said hi and she told me to follow her to her barn. She and some others were starting our areas old hunt club back up and shed drug her husband into it. He wasn’t a rider so she’d gotten him a couple of veteran, push button horse. Now she had more horses than she could keep fit so could I come ride them with her and take them out when he couldn’t go? She’d pay my fees until I decided if I wanted to join because there’d always be a horse available. Since I’m neither stupid nor on drugs, of course I said HELL YEAH I WILL!!! 😂 Eventually I bought a 15.2h QH from another friend that hunted with us. She’d found him in the paper 🤦🏻♀️ and bought him from a lady that got him as a yearling BARREL HORSE prospect. I’d started riding him for her because to say he was a handful when he got there would be an understatement. He had racing bloodlines and could turn on a dime, but he was the type that roamed around the pasture, looking for something to jump. Usually it was the seller’s 4ft-ish fence. If I didn’t see it for myself, I wouldn’t have believed it. 😳We had coops set up between fields and some basic fences in one of the flattest parts of the “big field” so he was able to keep himself entertained without leaving our property. Unfortunately, he wasn’t a fan of being caught.🙄😤 One day I had him cornered by a gate on the back of the property that wasn’t used anymore. His options were a vine covered fence that was stupid high, an electric fence section that was around 4ft tall and the gate. He literally eyed the vine “wall”, backed up a step or 2 and having no clue what was on the other side, jumped it from a stand still. And cleared it! I stood there, mouth gaping, knowing I was way in over my head. 🤣🤣 I’d made the mistake of buying a horse that was clearly smarter and braver than me! lol Come to find out, when he was in a group where he had to follow and wait to jump, he became really restless and insecure, especially if his laid back pasture buddy had gotten too far ahead. Sometimes he would land and there was no stopping him. We’d spend the whole meet fighting each other. Good times. Foxhunting is about manners and staying out of the hounds’ way. Something had to give because there’s only so many bits I’m willing to try. Funny enough, if you put him in a ring, he became a complete gentleman of a beginners horse that would do anything from cross rails with a floppy newbie, to working Hunter as long as you stayed quiet and kept out of his way! Me? Staying quiet I can do, but staying out of the way was my kryptonite. 🤦🏻♀️ That’s the only horse I ever jumped over 4ft., merely out of petty pride. And even then, it was during a lesson, in a ring, through gymnastics. The lesson was with a local trainer I’d always despised and trust me, the feeling was mutual. BUT, my fox hunting buddies who’d never been to a show, much less been around this idiot trainer at a show, seemed to love her. During the off season, once or twice a month, we packed up our horses for lessons and I played along. Honestly, I did it to prove she was an idiot. Petty pride be damned! 😂 For one of the lessons, we went to a LOVELY ladies house that had a beautiful barn and arena. I’m talking, Southern Living ACTUALLY told her they wouldn’t put her house in their magazine because it wasn’t realistically possible for the majority of their audience. I saw the letter. 😵💫 Her daughter showed in Jr hunters, medals and Jr Jumpers. She was so beyond us, I’d literally never seen her daughter ride, much less gone to the same shows. 😳 We had perfect footing, beautiful jumps, the whole works. It was like the isle of misfit toys had shown up, but hey, she foxhunted along with us and was as humble as the day is long, so alrighty! We did our flat stuff, basic bending, blah blah blah, nothing I hadn’t been doing in the field at home. My horse and I FINALLY didn’t look like uncontrollable idiots because we were both in our happy place, so we both quickly got bored. And smug. 😬 Then came the jumps. 2’6, inside, outside, outside, inside. I was the only one who could count strides, see spots, get leads over fences or get lead changes. (No shade to them, those things just don’t matter when you’re fox hunting! You hang on, mind your manners, take your turn at the fence and keep moving. You don’t count strides as you go around an acre corn field) Once again, he and I got bored. We were both done with the whole thing. He was stepping over the jumps, stopped changing leads, started ducking out to the left and we started fighting. 🙄 The turd. We could all see what he was doing and were ALL pissed at him by the time it was said and done. (He was the type that would sling lead ropes at you or stomp if you walked past and didn’t say hi. He was a cuddle bug clown that opened his stall door because he could. He wouldn’t leave his stall, he’d just open his door and look at you like, TADA! Come pet me! 😏 He was an errant toddler when he got bored so we all knew he was throwing a fit.) In order to finish on a good note, as well as fix his little red wagon, gymnastics were set up. Praise the Dear Lord! REDEMPTION! I mean, ya can’t screw up gymnastics! I can totally get out of the way, we both LOVE gymnastics, so here we go! And we were killin it! Now he and I start getting cocky, because I have his same personality and I’ll never learn! The trainer just keeps raising the bounce to a 1 stride in and out. The higher it goes, the more he uses himself and man, was he cute! Everybody wants to see what he can do, so she just keeps raising them. We’re talking single rail, airy ass fences at this point and he could care less. So I have to put on this brave face and “Hell yeah!” great. The trainer and I keep side eyeing each other, chins stuck out like do. your. worst. and come at me. Well, she did. lol I eventually tapped out at the 3ft to 3’6 TROT bounce to 4’ in and out. Still single rails, including the now 4’ spread oxer going out. Nope. The lady’s daughter took over and they started flying. I don’t even remember where they stopped but they only stopped because we were getting hungry and it was getting late, not because he was over challenged. That’s when I knew he needed to be in a ring, toting beginners around, doing what really made him happy. Within the next 2 weeks, I took him to my old show trainer’s barn where he became a barn favorite lesson horse. I went out and rode him 2-3 times a month but he was happiest with the beginners. I had more fun watching him and grooming for her at shows than stealing him away from his kids. Life eventually took over, I got married, moved away for a big sales job and she bought him from me for the $2500 I paid for him so I could put it towards a house loan downpayment. And with that, I never, nor shall I ever, jumped 4ft fences again. 😏
These are so cool jumps! The horses are amazing
Horses are beautiful🐴💜
Yes they are!! They cost around 90k-200k
@@MHPEquestrian.... That is a lot.
@@milamarinkovic9588 I know!!! It’s crazy
As a funny aside… I grew up showing in NC, SC, GA, East and Middle TN. I lived in Charlotte, NC during my short stirrup and very first pony days. Jack Towell was at a lot of the Mecklenburg Hounds shows, even if it was just to take green horses to some bigger “schooling” shows. I remember the day Liza Boyd made her public debut on a pony. Jack and Elizabeth were very loved by everybody. We’d all been waiting to see Liza ride one day because we’d all gotten invested in her mom’s pregnancy, like we were part of their family. 😂 When the big day came, word spread the show grounds like a celebrity had shown up! It wasn’t like she was showing, she was just chilling by the ring, hanging out on a pony either Jack or Elizabeth was leading while the other had their arm around her, making sure she was safe. I don’t remember how old she was, but OH! MY! GOSH!, she was DARLING!!! Fringed chaps were rollin strong at the time, so of course, Liza had a tiny pair of chaps with metallic shiny, multi-colored fringe. We’re talking she was maaaaybe 2, possibly younger? I will NEVER forget seeing her. I can picture it like it was yesterday! Well, the only thing that’s not fuzzy is her in her chaps, but that’s enough. 😂
That’s so cool!! I miss my fringed chaps haha
@@MHPEquestrian I still have mine!! They were “shelf” chaps that I somehow eventually talked my parents into adding fringe, initials, good zippers and alterations for my bday. 🤣 I also have the pair I got after them, but they didn’t have fringe. Somebody never picked up their customs so I got them for a song and paid for a few alterations. Helluva deal! I couldn’t get rid of them after that.
Wow that’s awesome!!!! I think I lost my in a move :(
🥺☹️
I’m late getting here (2024!😊) so I’m not sure if you’ll see this, but hopefully so.
The high options are 3ft5? They look HUGE, like at least 4ft! That means the low options are 3ft? That’s large pony height?
Granted, I showed many years ago and things have definitely changed, but I finished on a large pony and didn’t have access to a horse so my 1 attempt at 15-17eq, at 3ft6, was more than enough for me and my 14h scrapper of a pony. He loved it! I did not. lol. In fact, I pulled up at the gate and never finished. It was so embarrassing. It was a big summer A show at KY Horse Park. The class had over 30 of us in it. I slunk back to my stall and bawled.
ANYhoo! Do Jr Hunters still do 3’6? Working Hunter used to do 3’6-4’. That’s been changed to High Performance or something like that, right? Are they still doing 4’? If so, why are the Derby horses doing 3’-3’5? I thought the Derby horses were supposed to be the top 10% of the top 10%. They sure look it! 🤩 But if they can trot a 3’ jump, why make the low options close to the same size? Seems like the High Performance hunters would be the better athletes if they’re still jumping 4’?
Please don’t get me wrong, as a short stirrup kid in the late 70’s who got to watch mostly Thorobreds in the Working Hunters, in open fields, carrying a pace that would never work today, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the newer style Derby’s where riders like Kelly Farmer are much more aggressive with their pace! I also love that the judges are making it clear that that’s what they’re looking for. I recently watched the replay of the Derby Gran Prix held at one of the Florida shows. THEY EVEN PLAYED CRAZY TRAIN WHILE SOMEONE WAS ON COURSE! It was awesome! Lately I’ve been watching any Derby’s I can find, no matter how old they are. As a one time foxhunter, these courses and going back to showing in sprawling grass rings makes my day!! Roll tops, logs and brush boxes, oh my!! lol
Yes the jr hunters now have to hights its not 3’3 and 3’6. Kinda of crazy but I get it.
Moving from the children’s hunter at 3ft to 3’6” in the jrs was a big jump haha so adding the 3’3 is kind of nice
Were the Sm Jrs 3’3? Idk. I stuck to my pony ring. lol My parents thought I’d have grown out of it by the time I outgrew my pony so there was no horse on my horizon. 😏 Looking back at pics of him, he was a lot cuter than I gave him credit for! At 14h though, he wasn’t a good enough mover to really hang at the A shows. He KILLED it in the short stirrup and held his own in LrgPH over fences, but we were never bringing home tri-colors at anything big enough to draw the big names of the time. At least it was fun to watch them go and wish.
I just realized why the fences looked so much bigger than 3’6 to me! It’s the International Derby that’s 4ft! 🤦🏻♀️ Not having shown in yeeeeeeeears, I forgot there’s 2 different levels of Derbies that the pro’s and bigger jr’s do, that I’ll typically find posted in its entirety. You even said something about that! 😂 I think I got distracted by the cool course that had the fence on the grass hill. 🫠😁 I’d never be able to jump 4ft on purpose, over and over, so I LOVE seeing the working Hunter/high performance horses go.
Since it’s just you and me, and I never get to talk about horses anymore, can I ramble on with what I mean when I say “on purpose”? I guess I miss riding more than I realized. 😁 Alas, I’m now in a small midwestern town where nobody’s seen an English saddle unless it’s the local QH’s that only do flat work and trainers I wouldn’t take a goat to, much less give them my money. 😬
Here comes my rambling story from the early 90’s…
From ~92-96, I was in my fox hunting phase. I stumbled into it after I had to quit riding because I’d graduated college and bills are real. lol One day, I literally passed an old friend on the highway, we rolled down our windows, said hi and she told me to follow her to her barn. She and some others were starting our areas old hunt club back up and shed drug her husband into it. He wasn’t a rider so she’d gotten him a couple of veteran, push button horse. Now she had more horses than she could keep fit so could I come ride them with her and take them out when he couldn’t go? She’d pay my fees until I decided if I wanted to join because there’d always be a horse available. Since I’m neither stupid nor on drugs, of course I said HELL YEAH I WILL!!! 😂 Eventually I bought a 15.2h QH from another friend that hunted with us. She’d found him in the paper 🤦🏻♀️ and bought him from a lady that got him as a yearling BARREL HORSE prospect. I’d started riding him for her because to say he was a handful when he got there would be an understatement. He had racing bloodlines and could turn on a dime, but he was the type that roamed around the pasture, looking for something to jump. Usually it was the seller’s 4ft-ish fence. If I didn’t see it for myself, I wouldn’t have believed it. 😳We had coops set up between fields and some basic fences in one of the flattest parts of the “big field” so he was able to keep himself entertained without leaving our property. Unfortunately, he wasn’t a fan of being caught.🙄😤 One day I had him cornered by a gate on the back of the property that wasn’t used anymore. His options were a vine covered fence that was stupid high, an electric fence section that was around 4ft tall and the gate. He literally eyed the vine “wall”, backed up a step or 2 and having no clue what was on the other side, jumped it from a stand still. And cleared it! I stood there, mouth gaping, knowing I was way in over my head. 🤣🤣 I’d made the mistake of buying a horse that was clearly smarter and braver than me! lol
Come to find out, when he was in a group where he had to follow and wait to jump, he became really restless and insecure, especially if his laid back pasture buddy had gotten too far ahead. Sometimes he would land and there was no stopping him. We’d spend the whole meet fighting each other. Good times. Foxhunting is about manners and staying out of the hounds’ way. Something had to give because there’s only so many bits I’m willing to try.
Funny enough, if you put him in a ring, he became a complete gentleman of a beginners horse that would do anything from cross rails with a floppy newbie, to working Hunter as long as you stayed quiet and kept out of his way! Me? Staying quiet I can do, but staying out of the way was my kryptonite. 🤦🏻♀️
That’s the only horse I ever jumped over 4ft., merely out of petty pride. And even then, it was during a lesson, in a ring, through gymnastics. The lesson was with a local trainer I’d always despised and trust me, the feeling was mutual. BUT, my fox hunting buddies who’d never been to a show, much less been around this idiot trainer at a show, seemed to love her. During the off season, once or twice a month, we packed up our horses for lessons and I played along. Honestly, I did it to prove she was an idiot. Petty pride be damned! 😂
For one of the lessons, we went to a LOVELY ladies house that had a beautiful barn and arena. I’m talking, Southern Living ACTUALLY told her they wouldn’t put her house in their magazine because it wasn’t realistically possible for the majority of their audience. I saw the letter. 😵💫 Her daughter showed in Jr hunters, medals and Jr Jumpers. She was so beyond us, I’d literally never seen her daughter ride, much less gone to the same shows. 😳 We had perfect footing, beautiful jumps, the whole works. It was like the isle of misfit toys had shown up, but hey, she foxhunted along with us and was as humble as the day is long, so alrighty!
We did our flat stuff, basic bending, blah blah blah, nothing I hadn’t been doing in the field at home. My horse and I FINALLY didn’t look like uncontrollable idiots because we were both in our happy place, so we both quickly got bored. And smug. 😬 Then came the jumps. 2’6, inside, outside, outside, inside. I was the only one who could count strides, see spots, get leads over fences or get lead changes. (No shade to them, those things just don’t matter when you’re fox hunting! You hang on, mind your manners, take your turn at the fence and keep moving. You don’t count strides as you go around an acre corn field) Once again, he and I got bored. We were both done with the whole thing. He was stepping over the jumps, stopped changing leads, started ducking out to the left and we started fighting. 🙄 The turd. We could all see what he was doing and were ALL pissed at him by the time it was said and done. (He was the type that would sling lead ropes at you or stomp if you walked past and didn’t say hi. He was a cuddle bug clown that opened his stall door because he could. He wouldn’t leave his stall, he’d just open his door and look at you like, TADA! Come pet me! 😏 He was an errant toddler when he got bored so we all knew he was throwing a fit.)
In order to finish on a good note, as well as fix his little red wagon, gymnastics were set up. Praise the Dear Lord! REDEMPTION! I mean, ya can’t screw up gymnastics! I can totally get out of the way, we both LOVE gymnastics, so here we go! And we were killin it! Now he and I start getting cocky, because I have his same personality and I’ll never learn! The trainer just keeps raising the bounce to a 1 stride in and out. The higher it goes, the more he uses himself and man, was he cute! Everybody wants to see what he can do, so she just keeps raising them. We’re talking single rail, airy ass fences at this point and he could care less. So I have to put on this brave face and “Hell yeah!”
great.
The trainer and I keep side eyeing each other, chins stuck out like do. your. worst. and come at me. Well, she did. lol I eventually tapped out at the 3ft to 3’6 TROT bounce to 4’ in and out. Still single rails, including the now 4’ spread oxer going out.
Nope.
The lady’s daughter took over and they started flying. I don’t even remember where they stopped but they only stopped because we were getting hungry and it was getting late, not because he was over challenged.
That’s when I knew he needed to be in a ring, toting beginners around, doing what really made him happy. Within the next 2 weeks, I took him to my old show trainer’s barn where he became a barn favorite lesson horse.
I went out and rode him 2-3 times a month but he was happiest with the beginners. I had more fun watching him and grooming for her at shows than stealing him away from his kids. Life eventually took over, I got married, moved away for a big sales job and she bought him from me for the $2500 I paid for him so I could put it towards a house loan downpayment.
And with that, I never, nor shall I ever, jumped 4ft fences again. 😏
Haha