The U.S. Equestrian Federation-recognized small hunter division is back. A discussion at the 2010 USEF Annual Convention sparked a rule change, and the classes—which are for horses that stand over 14.2 hands but not above 15.2½ hands—have been offered since the beginning of the 2012 competition season. The U.S. Hunter Jumper Association will present Horse of the Year awards at the zone level, and USEF will do the same at the national level.

“The pony hunter breeding committee has been talking about it for quite some time because we accept that there are occasions when some of our ponies grow to be horses—and small horses usually,” said Audrey Winzinger, a member of the USHJA’s Pony Breeding Task Force. “But then, we’re also worldly enough to know there are Quarter Horses that size and Thoroughbreds and crossbreds that size, so it seemed like it was a group of animals that tended to end up in what I will call ‘catch all divisions.’

“We thought reinvigorating the small hunter division would give a spot to some that really didn’t have a spot,” continued Winzinger, Hainesport, N.J. “Some were serving a good purpose being pre-adult and pre-children’s horses, but I think what we have done is up the ante a little because even though some of those small horses get plucked out for those jobs, some of them don’t really get made up and don’t have a useful career.”

The division is C-rated and open to professionals, juniors and amateurs alike. Horses will compete at 3′. The USHJA is working to produce an inaugural small hunter final in 2013.

“We had hoped that we would be able to get a final off the ground for 2012,” said Winzinger, who runs Tustin Farm. But in the end, they decided to wait a year to allow show managers to get the division into their prize list and give competitors time to get appropriate horses ready for the division.

The small hunter division is not new to the hunter sport. But because the last decade saw decreased participation in the classes, many shows stopped offering them.

“A lot of folks in Maryland and Virginia, where that division was very strong, tell me wonderful tales about how it was very well attended, and horses in it were very fancy,” said Winzinger. “I do feel that because the other divisions had goals at the end—the children’s hunter had North American League finals, for example—it seems like we ended up having animals migrate to those divisions.”

The overall goal of reviving the small hunter division is to better place horses in divisions where they can succeed.

Winzinger hopes that as the division grows, people will purchase horses specifically to do the small hunters. “It would make it another place for animals to compete and show in a division that’s suitable for them,” she said. “So we wouldn’t try to make ones that weren’t ponies into ponies, or we wouldn’t try to make the ones that weren’t 3’6” horses into 3’6” horses.”