Personality for Hunters

In a conversation my instructor told me that Dancer didn't really have the stuff for hunters, physically or mentally. When I asked her what she meant she didn't really explain. She just said that there is QH hunters and regular hunters with QH hunters basically being western pleasure horses with an english saddle.

Can someone elaborate for me the difference between QH hunters and regular hunters? Also, what is needed out of the horse for each?

(BTW, my instructor thinks Dancer is good for western dressage)

Typically a hunter should be quiet, steady, consistent, Good minded, and look like they are pleased with the job they do just like a western pleasure horse. But in regular hunter divisions, a horse should have a nice form going over jumps and moving around the arena. But as far as a difference between QH hunter divisions and regular hunter divisions, I really have no clue what the difference is and what they look for in the QH circuit .

Do you do western pleasure? I don't know precisely what they judge for in AQHA huntseat stuff, but I do know I hate seeing a horse go from western tack in WP to english tack in hunters. A traditional english hunter horse showing against QH type hunters in an open show will never win, in my experience.

Dancer doesn't show in anything. Not yet, anyway. He doesn't move like a western pleasure horse. I had to work really hard to get him to jog. My instructor really wants us to do western dressage since she thinks he'll be good at it. (I don't have a dressage saddle so that's why I don't do that.) Also when he canters its not slow like a western pleasure lope.

Do you have any videos of him moving? That would help us figure out what he might be best suited for. :)

Nope, but when I get a chance I'll try to take some

She was kindly implying your horse is too much of a hothead or she doesn't have the skill to train your horse. Stereotypical AQHA hunters are deadheads. If the horse isn't fairly large or have a big floating trot stride you can't be competitive in the breed shows it's just the sad reality.

Ahh...that makes complete sense. I don't doubt for any second that my instructor couldn't train him but Dancer is definitely not a deadhead. He definitely has spunk and can be reactive. He digs dressage, though.

Personally, QHs excel in anything with proper training. As PintoJumper mentioned, your coach probably doesn't have the skill to train your horse to the level you want it to be trained at which is 100% true. I had a coach like this, who didn't want to help me with my QH that I previously owned for hunters. He now shows Trillium A's with a local barn not too far from me. As long as your horse is along the lines of what SaddleStrings mentioned, you would be just fine in the hunters. In the US they actually show a lot of English at the AQHA shows and there are infact champion Hunter QHs. Hope this helped:) Just remember, one coach's opinion may differ from another, and things do turn around.

It's also possible her horse doesn't have the personality or movement to really excel at hunters. You can train them to enhance movement, but if they don't have the initial personality and way of going you can only do so much. AQHA hunters have large, flowy and quiet gaits. They are born with that quiet demeanor like a WP horse is and naturally want to travel that way. Of course there are exceptions, but usually they are bred specifically for AQHA HUS.