The U.S. Hunter Jumper Association announced new specifications for the fourth USHJA International Hunter Derby Finals. The 2012 Finals will be held Aug. 17-18 at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington in conjunction with the Bluegrass Festival.
This time, all finalists will compete in the classic round on Friday. The top 30 horses will advance to the Saturday evening handy round. New in 2012, the $100,000 in prize money will be distributed down to 20th place. The next-highest scoring horses may participate in a new $15,000 consolation round. The number of horses to compete in that round is still to be determined.
In previous years, all horses competed in a qualifying round on Friday, then the top 25 advanced to a classic round on Saturday evening, followed by a handy round for the top 12 horses.
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“We’re trying to instill that horses don’t have to jump as much as they used to. We felt that we were requiring them to jump more than they needed to,” said USHJA High Performance Hunter Committee chair Ron Danta. “We decided to make the first round count, so horses just jump two times, and the scores carry over.”
The qualifying specifications for the class have also changed. In previous years, the top 75 horses were invited to participate in the finals, with invitations extended down the standings to additional horses to make 75 entries. Horses had to have earned at least $1,000 in order to participate. For the 2012 Finals, there is no limit in the number of entries, and any horse that earned $500 in the derby series will be eligible to compete.
