Joyeux Show Jumpers

Joyeux Show Jumpers Private Hunter/Jumper Training Boutique✨

🥰🤍Guaranteed to be the #1 gift under the tree! 🎄💚 🎅🏼
12/07/2025

🥰🤍Guaranteed to be the #1 gift under the tree! 🎄💚

🎅🏼

12/01/2025

From birthday shout-outs over the loudspeaker to judges who take the time to teach, local shows are full of the small moments that make this sport magical.
Blogger Jamie Sindell shares why keeping local circuits alive is essential for riders, families, and trainers alike.
➡️ Full story in the comments.

Excellent Fall show for everyone at HITS Ocala! Congratulations to these talented students, we are very proud 🩵💛
11/12/2025

Excellent Fall show for everyone at HITS Ocala! Congratulations to these talented students, we are very proud 🩵💛

This 🤌🏼💕
10/16/2025

This 🤌🏼💕

Two full training board slots available!
10/16/2025

Two full training board slots available!

⭐️Throw back to 2001 ft. Hotwheels🏎️
10/08/2025

⭐️Throw back to 2001 ft. Hotwheels🏎️

10/05/2025

Hunters were designed to mimic the challenges of the hunt field, testing style, brilliance, and natural ability. But according to Geoff Case, USEF R Judge, trainer, and clinician, today’s hunter ring has strayed far from those origins.

“Every time you change something and it makes something more difficult, it makes it harder for the horses to go around like that,” he said. “I feel like the hunters were creating dressage with jumps in the way. Essentially it’s the same eight-jump pattern everywhere you go.”

The result? A discipline that increasingly looks like performance art, polished, robotic, and predictable, rather than a sport designed to test horse and rider.

Case believes hunters have become overly rigid in penalizing anything that deviates from a narrow picture of perfection. Cross-cantering, missed lead changes, even headshaking are all faults that weigh heavily on a score. “It was supposed to mimic the hunt field,” he noted. “And now it’s something else entirely.”

That rigidity discourages brilliance. Horses are worked until they are flat and expressionless, their personality stripped away to avoid deductions. “To be crisp and jump their best, they need to be a bit fresh,” Case explained. “But we’ve worked the brilliance out of them. You take the personality out.”

The mindset around mistakes is also harsher in hunters than in other disciplines. Piper Klemm observed that hunter riders can be “debilitated by their 76,” while jumpers with a rail down might be frustrated but move on. Case agreed, adding: “You pop chip in the hunter ring and it’s like your life is over. You want to crawl in a hole. You pop chip in the jumper ring and, if the horse leaves it up, you laugh about it and show the video to your friends.”

That difference in culture drives a wedge between hunters and other disciplines. For perfectionists drawn to the hunter ring, small imperfections feel catastrophic, while jumper riders are often able to shrug off a mistake.

In Case’s words, hunters today have become “performance art more than a sport.” The pursuit of an idealized picture, a horse going perfectly quiet, in perfect rhythm, without the slightest bobble, has overtaken the original goal of showcasing athleticism in a natural way.

Even efforts to inject brilliance have fallen flat. When international hunter derbies were introduced, horses were supposed to be allowed to be expressive and a little fresh. But in practice, the judging didn’t change. “They were supposed to be allowed to play a little bit,” Case said. “But the way those things were judged changed very little, and that was still penalized. So people went back to the same old way.”

📎 Continue reading this article at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2025/10/01/art-or-sport-has-hunters-drifted-away-from-its-roots/
📸 © Lauren Mauldin / The Plaid Horse

Super thrilled with this match last weekend. Making their long stirrup debut & bringing home some nice ribbons. Great wo...
10/02/2025

Super thrilled with this match last weekend. Making their long stirrup debut & bringing home some nice ribbons. Great work! 🌟 Looking forward to seeing them shine in the upcoming show season.

09/27/2025

Watch, follow, and discover more trending content.

🤍Always, ALL about the horse and doing right by them, absolutely positively… Integrity with dignity 💯
09/17/2025

🤍Always, ALL about the horse and doing right by them, absolutely positively… Integrity with dignity 💯

Join us for some Halloween 🎃 horse fun!!We can’t wait to see how creative you get with your costumes!!! 👻 Reserve your ...
09/02/2025

Join us for some Halloween 🎃 horse fun!!
We can’t wait to see how creative you get with your costumes!!! 👻 Reserve your spot as space is limited!!!

08/21/2025

Happy horses, happy kids!
I love watching this little girls riding journey 😍

Address

Hamby Lane
Spring Hill, FL
34610

Opening Hours

Wednesday 8am - 6pm
Thursday 8am - 6pm
Friday 8am - 6pm
Saturday 8am - 6pm
Sunday 8am - 3pm

Telephone

+12036483697

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