When looking for a new working hunter horse I always look out for a few key qualities in the horse.
When looking for a working hunter the first thing we look for is what we would describe as a nice stamp of a horse or rather good posture, good straight movements and good eyes and features. I personally like Irish horses that are true to type for their class and I don’t tend to go for foreign horses. In terms of age, I like three year olds, rising four, just broken and being ridden. For less experienced riders, I would recommend a minimum of a six to seven year olds who have seen the world a bit.
Personally I believe it’s important to buy a good looking hunter because in working hunter competitions looks do count. Your horse’s mane should be plaited, heels and whiskers should be trimmed and tails should be pulled. Your horse’s coat should look clean and shiny. Plaiting can be used to enhance the neck by using large or small plaits. If your horse has a skinny neck, then opt for big plaits and for large necked horses, go for small plaits. I use Groomers products and cannot recommend their Plait ‘n’ Go enough for keeping plaits tidy.
I always use a breastplate martingale and even a standing martingale on the younger horses. These are allowed. However, don’t be using a five point breastplate as these cover up the horse’s conformation and if your saddle fits correctly, then you shouldn’t need to anyway.
Fitness is another key issue with working hunters; Fitness really depends on the age and experience of the horse in question. It’s crucial to build up the fitness levels before we start any heavy schooling. To build up fitness, we hack out doing quite a lot of walking and trotting up hills – keeping the horse’s head carriage very low while trotting up hills helps them to use their shoulders and stretch under the saddle.
I like to keep variety in the work we do for all of our horses. We hack out, hunt and school at home. When schooling, we make them understand that this is the serious part of their training and introduce a variety of exercises and jumps according to their level. The older horses have far less schooling at home and spend more time hacking out.