Adventures in Saddle Seatbreds
This post is straight-up digital stalking. I wasn’t there. I don’t know anything more than what I’ve seen online. If you know more about ASB-over-fences showing, please correct me. If you were there to watch or ride, wanna do a guest post and tell us all about it?
This year, the St. Louis Charity Horse Show had a Saddlebred jumper class, ASB .90m Jumper Stake. Ten horses showed up. As far as I know (??) this is the first time jumpers have competed at a Saddlebred show, at least in the modern era. St. Louis has offered a hunter course for many years. It is the only show (??) to do so. A handful of other shows offer a Hunter Hack-style class with 1 or 2 jumps at the end of the rail work.
HorseShowsOnline
The class was .9 meters. For this those of us who predate the conversion to metric jumper classes, that is 2′ 11+”, aka three feet. That takes some real jump training. Not the sort of go out & goof over that Milton and I did this spring. Six of the ten horses have Kris Wallace listed as their trainer. Google says someone of that name with similar habits is at Columbia Equestrian Center.
The show also offered a jumper warm-up, which five horses went in. I don’t understand why everyone didn’t avail themselves of the opportunity to school the course. Either way, it didn’t appear to effect the placings. Competitors who rode in the warm-up class placed 1st, 3rd, 6th, 9th, 10th in the jumper class.
Jump! All! The! Things!
Questions? Comments? Concerns?
Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott
Virtual Brush Box 
Thanks for the metric conversion, I can’t think in metric. There must be shows with lower jumps to work up to 3′.
William Steinkraus, who competed in four Olympics, rode a American Saddlebred for jumping. Saddlebreds can do h-j, dressage, etc., no question.
Trivia note from Wikipedia: Steinkraus started out as a saddle seat equitation rider, and won national fine hands classes, before changing to jumping and dressage.
Columbia Equestrian Center is local to me, and they regularly compete Saddlebreds in jumping and eventing. The horse that came in 2nd place in the class you’re talking about (not associated with CEC but also local to my area) competes training level eventing with her Saddlebred!
d&t: Classes start at .65, which translates to just over 2′. I don’t know if standards are sold with the new measurements or with the old system of a hole every 3″.
Anon: Wiki says Steinkraus won both hunt seat & saddle seat. Which is impressive but does make me wonder about the size of the classes. “In 1941 Steinkraus reached the highest level of equitation competition when he won the ASPCA Maclay Cup in Hunter Seat Equitation and the Good Hands Finals in Saddle Seat Equitation at the National Horse Show.[4].” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Steinkraus, quoting Bryant, *Olympic Equestrian*
Nicole: I wonder why so much regional variation. No one around here is showing ASBs in sport horse disciplines. AFAIK.