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Looking Back at the Start of Saddle & Bridle Hunter Finals

The American Saddlebred Horse Association (ASHA) is proud of all the sides of the American Saddlebred that are featured in the show ring at the St. Louis National Charity Horse Show year after year. With the help of Saddle & Bridle magazine and other dedicated supporters they have continued to lead the way in providing elite competition for American Saddlebreds outside of the saddle seat discipline. Since the pleasure horse division began at American Saddlebred horse shows in the 1950's Saddle & Bridle has worked to sponsor and promote championship finals for pleasure American Saddlebred show horses in a wide array of disciplines.  Below we look at an excerpt generously provided by Saddle & Bridle Magazine from one of their first Hunter Classic Finals National Champions! 

Be sure to tune in to the FREE webcast provided here to see a wonderfully diverse exhibition of Saddlebred champions at St. Louis National Charity Horse Show. 

Full class schedule available here. 

Coe’s Fly By Night and Margi Stickney were one of the first winners of Saddle & Bridle’s Hunter Seat Classic National Championship in 1993.

Margi’s Story - Make those hunters JUMP!

By Dally Malenfant From Saddle & Bridle, September 2016 

A native of Ohio, Margi Stickney fell in love with the American Saddlebred while walking through Don Harris’s stalls at the River Ridge Charity Horse Show. She and her mother were wowed by the beauty of the breed, but were unsure if they would ever be able to afford to show or own one.

When she was eight years old, her grandfather bought her a pony and she showed in 4-H until she left for college. Margi did get the chance to show a number of American Saddlebreds on the Kentucky County Fair circuit while attending Morehead State University. After college, she moved to Lexington, knowing that she wanted to find a job working with horses in a very male-dominated industry. She was able to secure a job at the racetracks as an exercise rider, among other duties, for over 10 years. Wanting to put her education to use, she then moved onto a longtime career at the Kentucky Horse Park teaching adults in their Kentucky Equine Management program.

It was while working at the Horse Park that Margi was given the opportunity to ride the American Saddlebred Coe’s Fly By Night. In 13 the Kentucky Spring Premier Horse Show added a hunt seat class. Not knowing that it was actually a qualifying class for the Saddle & Bridle Hunter Seat Classic Finals, Margi and “Flyer” entered the class to help fill it, as the hunter division was fairly new on the Kentucky circuit. Flyer was owned by the woman who ran the Rolex 3-Day event and had shown him in dressage and eventing competitions throughout Kentucky.

“He was black and well mannered, with no interest in raising his legs unless he was going over a fence” said Margi.

It was during the line up that Margi learned this was a qualifying class for the National Championship. When she came out of the class having won it, a friend asked her if she was going to St. Louis. “You might not win, but at least you would have gone!” he said.

“I bought a truck to make the trip,” Margi said when asked if she did anything special to prepare Flyer for the finals.

With the help of a few friends and her mother, Margi and Flyer went to St. Louis not knowing what to expect. They were second in the qualifying class, much to the dismay of many of the local competitors, Margi said.

When Margi and Flyer entered the warm up arena for the finals, she was surprised to see a very small jump set up.

“When they announced that there would be a jump, people lost their minds!” she said.

When she realized how unprepared for that portion of the class the other competitors and horses were, she started to think that she and her black eventing horse might just do okay. She watched from the line up as fellow competitors tried to get their mounts to go over the jump. Some succeeded, while others did not.

“I was embarrassed for my breed,” she said. “Some were in dressage saddles, most didn’t have spurs or helmets that buckled.”

Flying over the tiny jump with ease, Margi and Flyer came out victorious in the class. Saddle & Bridle co-publisher Jeff Thompson was there to present her with her award and asked her, “What did you think of the jump” to which she replied “Do not take a jump out of a National Hunter Championship!”

By 1996, when Margi and Flyer returned to St. Louis, things had really changed for the better with the hunters. Competitors were in appropriate tack, horses were braided properly and best of all, they were prepared for the jump.

“Hats off to Saddle & Bridle for promoting the discipline, and not folding to the criticism of having that jump,” Margi said.

For Margi, winning the Hunter Seat Classic Finals was a life-altering event. She loves to tell her story about her “15 minutes of fame,” and the truck she purchased to get her to St. Louis … a truck that she just sold a short time ago.

She has since stopped showing, but her love of horses and the American Saddlebred hunter has not changed. She is a judge at the National 4-H Horse Bowl competition and does some volunteering at the local therapeutic riding center. She also attends the Lexington Jr. League Horse Show as often as possible, and was delighted at the size of the hunter class this year. Remembering a time when there weren’t any pleasure horses showing at Lexington, she was excited to see 17 hunter country pleasure horses this year.

“Times have changed,” she said. And it seems they have changed for the better. Though the jump was eventually removed from the Hunter Seat Classic, it was removed so that an entirely new final could be launched the Working Hunter Classic Finals, where competitors jump not one jump, but an entire course.