Watch Doug Payne ride at a hunter derby

If you take a perfectly nice horse, make them canter slowly with their head down, never change a thing to the jumps, and add in a bit of subjective judging politics then you get a hunter.  Eventer and good EN friend Doug Payne was asked by one of his owners to give the hunters a try.  Doug decided to get some cross-discipline exposure, so he took the horse, named Socks (I wonder why) to the Briarwood Hunter Derby.  I still carry a bit of a grudge from the pony club hunter riders in middle school who used to mock my 4-H pony who also doubled as my prize cow grooming competition model, but I have to agree with Jimmy who said once that being a top hunter rider over the big fences is one of the hardest things to do on horseback.  Go eventing.