When preparing for a handy hunter course, it is important to practice trot jumps, canter transitions and hand gallop fences, as well as to introduce your horse to natural-looking jumps like brush jumps, skinny jumps and faux rock jumps. Be ready for a handy hunter class with advice from an experienced trainer in this video on riding and jumping horses.
Getting prepared for a handy hunter class means doing a lot of homework before you get to the horse show. While I'm at home and preparing for a handy hunter class, I make sure I do lots of things with my hunter that I might prepare an equitation horse with. For example, trot jumps, canter transitions, hand gallop fences. I like to jump natural looking jumps, brush jumps, skinny jumps, even the infamous plastic rocks that show up in a few of the hunter derbies these days. It's important to practice all those things at home so your horse is ready when you get to the horse show. In the handy hunter classes that are most popular at the horse shows today, which are in the rated hunter divisions, they oftentimes ask for a trot jump, a hand gallop jump, and several roll back turns. So you want to have your horse practiced at home, and then you need to look at the course before you go to the warm-up area, because it's imperative that you practice, if you can, the test they're asking for on-course. So, for example, if you look at your course board and you notice that fence six is a trot jump, and fence eight is a hand gallop jump, you will be better prepared to warm up your horse in the warm-up area, because of course you will want to practice those two elements before you go in the ring.
