John recounts how he rode the stallion at a jumper barn
early in the morning of his flight back to the U.S: “It was a sort of last-minute thing. We went to go try him at 6:30 in the morning. The sun was barely coming up. We took him down to a ring—I jumped him, and the person put the jumps up pretty big. They were at least 4 foot.” “I was trying to ride him really
soft like a hunter. I’m thinking, ‘Is he going to jump these jumps when I am riding him like this?’ It was like he kind of wanted to go that way. I had all the confidence after jumping a few jumps. He felt like he could probably jump a lot higher,” he says, and added that the horse had show jumped up to 1.30 meter and was owned by an amateur. Barbara continues the story. “After many conversations
and a very blurry video that was shown to me, I trusted John’s opinion and I bought the horse unseen. As you know, John has a very good eye for horses. This time it was a little different for me because the last five or six horses I have bought with John’s expertise have been either jumpers or equitation horses. With my past experience with John, I knew I had a winner.” John said his first impression of the horse was, “He’s so
pretty. I just like his size too. I don’t like horses that are too big, because I’m small. Another professional said, ‘That horse is made for you. He loves to go the way you like to ride.’” Barbara imported “Tumi” to California in December 2012.
After his 30-day quarantine at the University of California, Davis, she brought him home. Tumi’s hunter career was delayed in 2013 when John was
laid up after an accident at Thermal. Barbara says, “John was unable to ride for most of the year. This was a little hiccup to our plans for Ultime Espoir, because John was to be his rider in the competitions. It just pushed us back a year, but it also gave us time to prepare him better for the hunter arena as John can do so well.” Tumi attracted attention at his first 2014 show, the HITS
Desert Circuit. “Conformation-wise he is really correct,” says John. “He’s an older horse. Not normally does a horse look that good at 12, coming 13 years old. He is super clean-legged.” In 2014 Tumi excelled at Thermal. He won championships
every week and ended up overall champion in Green Work- ing Hunter First Year and Green Conformation Hunter. “He’s shown two divisions and he’s already been here three weeks in the same ring, jumping the same jumps. Horses start get- ting less impressed, and grumpy. You see a lot of rails com- ing off today. I think in the three weeks showing him he’s maybe hit two fences. He’s had two rubs in all the classes he’s done,” John reports from the show.
TOP: John French and Ultime Espoir on course, Green Conforma- tion Hunter, HITS Desert Circuit 2014.
“His strong point is he wants to give a big effort every
jump. He really clears the jumps by a bit. His canter is so nice that you can go forward, or you can wait. His tem- perament—look at him, he has a beautiful face, a beautiful eye,” he continues. Barbara plans to add Tumi to the list of activated stallions with the KWPN/NA. He has 30 foals registered with the KWPN in the Netherlands and a few have been imported to the U.S. His son Benig- nity shows as a pre-green hunter, owned by Laura Beth Secari. Tumi’s first U.S.-bred foal is due in May out of one of Barbara’s mares. Zangersheide horses are best known as jumpers but clearly
have the style and personality to succeed in the hunter ring as well. They demonstrate that not only can the right horses cross the line between the two disciplines, they can leap it!
RECENT USEF RULES CHANGES
WHILE HORSES WHO MAKE THE CAREER SWITCH from jumpers to hunters might be happier, other competi- tors sometimes complain that holes in the rules can make for unfair competition. A jumper can start over as a green hunter when he meets the specifications of USEF rules HU103 and HU106. Recent rule changes, effective December 1, 2013, elaborate both pre-green and green status that applies to an experi- enced jumper. HU103 limits green horse status. A jumper who showed
at 3 foot 6 (1.075 m) or higher in any class is ineligible as a green hunter in USEF, Equine Canada or FEI shows. HU106 specifies a pre-green horse, first or second
year, 3 foot or 3-3 in any class, USEF, Equine Canada or FEI, with fence 3 feet or higher. So a horse could show in non- licensed shows or foreign shows for years of experience, and still qualify as pre-green. If a horse shows in a nonrated class at a USEF-licensed
show, that does affect his pre-green or green status. To stay under pre-green, he could jump in classes with fences un- der three feet, such as Baby Green or Training Hunter. Shows may specify levels of difficulty by fence dimen-
sions. For example, so that jumpers may stay under the 1.075 m height, the show may offer Levels 0, 1, and 2. Therefore, a hunter in the U.S. can have years of show
experience and still meet the specifications of pre-green or green, and so can a jumper that competes as a hunter. v
Warmbloods Today 33
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