By Lisa Peterson

While visiting the C.H. Booth Library last week looking for the best selling book Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand, to my delight I came across a book I had as a child. Sticking out towards the edge of the shelf was the long-narrow copy of Learning to Ride, Hunt and Show by Gordon Wright.

Wright, for those of you born after we stopped wearing rust-colored breeches to horse shows, was an American riding pioneer. A graduate from the Cavalry School at Fort Riley, Kansas, he trained Olympians and was most notably George Morris’ greatest teacher and mentor. Owner of Secor Farms Riding Club in Westchester County, New York, he wrote this book in 1950 to give advice to the general riding public.

It is truly dated in some aspects, like the flared breeches and soft bowler hats worn by the riders, but the fundamentals like sound horsemanship and riding “basics” ring true today. This book is well worth the re-read if it’s been collecting dust on your shelf for several decades.

But what struck me the most was a chapter not written by Wright, but by Colonel William H. Henderson, at the time a notable horse breeder and prominent horse show judge. His chapter, “How A Working Hunter is Judged,” made me nostalgic for a way of life not found at horse shows any more.

He begins:

By far the most popular classes at horse shows today, with the exception of certain sections of the south, are the working hunter classes.

Henderson cited two reasons for this popularity. The American Thoroughbred stock depleted from “sharply curtailed” breeding during the war was making a comeback and because more and more people were learning to ride well enough to be able to compete in the show ring.

It means the horse show is returning to the amateur status, the country-fair feeling, where everyone who has anything at all to show wants to get in and ride his own horse and have fun doing it. That is what horse shows should be, and I like to see more and more owner-riders and amateur riders coming along to make their debut in the show ring.

 

Sadly, today, I see the working hunter division the realm of the professional even though more amateurs than ever before in history are showing. Fortunately, the Thoroughbred is still the typical hunter type. But just like 50 years ago he seems to be making a comeback again after years of amateur riders buying European warmbloods.

Henderson defines a working hunter as “any horse that is “hunting sound,” and can jump a three-foot-six fence reasonably well and safely, in good jumping form.”

What is this hunting sound? Does it come from the Huntsman’s horn? According to Henderson, it is a horse that “has no illness, blemish or conformation fault which would prevent his being able to jog out sound at the completion of his class . . . he may go dead lame two seconds later, or been dead lame two seconds before . . . conformation faults, as such, do not count against him, nor do honorable hunting scars, such as wire cuts, etc.”

The thought of today’s show hunters, worth tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, running around the ring with scars from wire cuts seems ludicrous. But the first show hunters came from the foxhunting field and battle scars were badges of honor.

Henderson further writes:

the horse need not have been hunted with a recognized pack of hounds, although this qualification is called for in some special classes, and the program clearly states this when it is so. The majority of working hunter classes do not require that a horse be “qualified” by having put in at least one season with a recognized pack of hounds.

 

It is hard enough to imagine a pampered show horse in the rugged hunt field, but one would be hard pressed to find a recognized pack of hounds to hunt with. And the one remaining pack in Connecticut, the Fairfield County Hounds, moved out of their namesake county decades ago.

Horse show venues have changed over the years and with it the way hunters are shown. Henderson offers a perfect example when discussing pace.

Pace is another important thing in a working hunter class. For the average working hunter, a pace of about sixteen to eighteen miles an hour is a good one.

 

Do you know how fast that is? Just to give you a comparison, the ordinary canter is between ten and twelve miles per hour with the extended canter around 14 miles per hour. The hand gallop lies between 14 and 16 miles per hour and 18 or above is considered racing speed. This guy is talking about galloping your horse almost “flat out” around the show course. And in those days you would find a few four-foot jumps even at the C-rated local shows.

Remember those “outside courses” with their undulating ground and solid fences including the ubiquitous stonewall. Coops, gates, post and rails with wings dotted the landscape! Jumps were built to help you so your horse didn’t run out at that fence you were galloping madly towards. There wasn’t a jump cup in sight! And forget about counting strides in between fences, we were too busy trying to keep our horses from going over the acceptable 18 miles per hour mark.

Henderson noted one exception for a slower pace.

The slower gait is sometimes preferred for the ladies’ working hunter class . . . because the thing the judge looks for in any ladies-to-ride class is, outstandingly, good manners.

 

Does he mean with the horse or with the lady?

No matter what the rider’s gender a horse needed to be a good mover. Henderson describes a horse’s “way of going.”

A high-galloping horse is a high-trotting horse, and a high-trotting horse will wear out the hardiest rider toward the end of a five- or six-hour hunt. For this reason, the close mover, or “The daisy cutter,” is what the judge thinks of as a good mover.” Just imagining riding on that hunt gives me cramps.

 

And before the advent of children’s, junior and the amateur-owner hunter divisions, there was only the working hunter division if you wanted to show your horse. Henderson says:

To be a working hunter, your horse does not need to be of any special size or color, although sixteen hands is a good size because he isn’t so big that a rider who has to dismount for some reason in the field will not have difficulty getting back in the saddle.

 

The last time I saw a rider dismount during a horse show was at Ox Ridge Hunt Club in some handy hunter class. The rider had to dismount and trot his mount over a cross rail and then mount again. The jump crew saw fit to leave a few brick wall blocks from a nearby jump lying around which all the participants used as a mounting block.

Last time I “dismounted” in the hunting field the jump crew forgot to set up the mounting block and I had to mount my 16.3-hand Thoroughbred from the ground. Luckily, I was able to mount with success since I was allowed to slow my pace as a lady with good manners.

 

Lisa Peterson is a horsewoman with 30 years experience riding, teaching and owning horses. She is the owner of Peterson Pet Sitting, LLC and can be reached at 270-1732 or elvemel@usa.net