Expert: mandiye wood - 11/24/2006

Question
What are the similarities between hunters and jumpers?

Answer
Hello there,

People often refer to hunters and jumpers in the same breath because the shows are often lumped together and many who become successful jumpers start out in the hunter ring, but there are definite differences between the two styles of riding.

Hunters are focused on a steady, even ride around a course of usually 8-12 jumps.  The horse is expected to approach each jump quietly, maintain a steady rhythm between jumps, and the rider is often judged as to their ability to maintain this as well as their position.  Also, the horses form over each jump is extremely important.  The types or size of the fences may vary depending on the class, but smooth, steady round with flashy jumping ability will win the class.  You want no rubs on any fences and a rail down, almost always puts you out of the ribbons.  In general the fences tend to be between 3 feet and 3 feet 9 inches in height.  Also, many times the fences are set to have a certain amount of strides and are designed to only be taken a certain way with smoother curves and easier lead changes.  Also, turnout of the horse and rider is incredibly important and should be conservative in the current style and the horse always with a pulled and braided mane.  Wraps, bandages, or bell boots all are not permissable.

Jumper classes are alot more relaxed in nature.  Speed is the name of the game.  Time penalties are given for going over the time limit, or on some occassions for a rail down, seconds are added, other times it is simply penalty points depending on the show.  Also, the jumps tend to be higher and wider testing the athleticism of the horse more (jumpers are generally considered anything above 3 feet 9 inches).  The rider has an option of how they want to take the fences and if they want to cut corners or do risky turns to save time.  Turnout for horse and rider is much simpler going from polo shirts and breeches at lower level shows to hunter type turnout at larger shows.  Mane may be pulled or braided depending on the rider's preference.  The horse may be shown in any combination of boots, wraps or the such as well.  Also, the horse's jumping style is not judged and he is not faulted for rubbing a rail.  Only penalized either by time or points for one falling.  Also, the jumps in jumper classes tend to be more challenging including liverpools (water jumps), brick walls, etc.  They are more colorful in general than hunter style jumps.  Also, jumper classes may have a class known as a joker's wild or puissance classes.  Joker's wild classes have each jump assigned a point value depending on the difficulty and height.  The rider is given so much time, say a minute to jump however many jumps they can and may only jump a certain jump so many times.  Whoever accumulates the most points wins.  Rails down keep the jump from being counted.  Puissance classes have either a single or a line of fences which begin at a certain height and are raised each round eliminating those that don't jump clean until a single horse is left.  There is no time limit.  

I hope this helps explain the differences.  Good luck.