It's a Hunter or it's Not

You can have a hunter/jumper trainer, board at a hunter/jumper barn, and even go to a hunter/jumper show. All this means is that both styles of training or classes are taught or available. A horse, however, is almost always a hunter or a jumper. There are horses who do both, but usually they do well at one and just dabble in the other. (Or maybe they don't do well in either one but not every horse is meant to be an athlete over fences!) It takes a rare horse to excel in both disciplines. For this reason, it has always bothered me to hear horses referred to as "hunter/jumpers". It shouldn't, but it does.

So, what is a hunter? It has to do with movement, form over fences, and general way of going. Discussing all three would make for a very long entry, so I'm just going to write about form over fences right now.

A good hunter jumps in a shape called a bascule. The bascule is an arched, rounded form the horse takes over the fence. Horses who jump flat, or with their heads too high, do not have a good bascule. A horse may have a good bascule but still not pin in the hunters because of poor form with the front legs. The front legs should be tight and even, not dangling the knees or hooves. Again, a horse may have a powerful, careful jump but not snap his knees up into hunter form and therefore will not place well.

To be fair, I will demonstrate form over fences with horses from my own barn. First, here are horses and ponies with good hunter form. Owen, a half-Welsh gelding, is jumping this small fence with very good form. His knees are up, level with his elbows. His front hooves are carefully tucked up toward his belly. His head and neck are stretching forward and down to form the arched shape of the bascule. He would jump with even more "pop" with a smaller rider but he was being schooled for me this day by an older student.


Teddy, a Thoroughbred, is also demonstrating good hunter form here. He is just starting to unfold his legs for landing so they are not quite as tight as Owen's, above, but the knees are still up and even. He is also stretching his head and neck forward and down to form the bascule. Teddy pinned very well over fences both at 3' (pictured) and 3'6" where his bascule was even more impressive.


Here is Rocky, a grade pony, but boy can he jump! The photo is taken a little too soon to judge the bascule (which I suspect may have been hindered by tension in the rider's upper body anyway) but his expression is picture-pony-perfect and his front end is tight and even. You can see that his hooves are twisted to the outsides a little bit which might hurt him in the pony model classes because it's part of his conformation, but otherwise he displays a very good jump.


Now I'll show horses with poor hunter form. Here is Isabelle, an Oldenburg. She has a pretty good bascule, but she is unimpressed with this 3' fence and not only are her legs not tucked up very tightly, they aren't even doing the same thing! Isabelle is a beautiful mare and she loves to jump, but form is not her strong point and she is a jumper mare, not a hunter. When we do show her in the hunters and she puts in a nice round with good distances and all her changes, she places below horses with tight knees. She does better in equitation and medals where the rider is judged rather than the horse.


This is a low-quality photo because the arena was dark, but here is an example of a poor bascule. This is Ginny, an Arabian. She usually jumps in very good form but this photo was taken in the show ring, heading toward the in-gate, and she was very excited and jumped flat. See how her head and ears are easily the highest part of her jump and her back is flat and trailing straight out behind her instead of in an arch? While the bascule is poor, her front end is good. She is tight and careful with her front end which can still be seen even at this point of the jump with her legs starting to unfold.

Here is a more subtle one. This is Fly, a Welsh x Arabian. His bascule is decent for this tiny jump (about 2'3"), but his knees are lower than his elbows, just a little. He is at an earlier part of his jump than Ginny, above, so we can't blame his somewhat loose front end on getting ready to land. It's not a lot, but it would be enough to keep him out of the ribbons in heavy competition. I imagine Fly's form will tighten up as he matures and we jump him higher because the problem with his form is slight and he was very green in the photo. His conformation is not typical of a hunter however and his future is in the jumper ring where he has already shown promise at schooling shows.