Good Hands Make Good Horsemen

Good Hands Make Good Horsemen

By Jimmy Hatcher

The ASPCA Maclay trophy

Jimmy Hatcher

Carry me back to November, 1950 and 1951. Those were the first two years I went to New York City to ride in Madison Square Garden at the National Horse Show.

The class I competed in was the ASPCA Maclay finals. In those days it was a hunter-seat equitation class. A rider showed over a suitable hunter figure-eight course. Before the class, you were allowed to school over the course in hunt team fashion. The ASPCA class also was known as “The Good Hands” class.

Some basics: juniors from Virginia were allowed by big stable owners to borrow seasoned show hunters (and usually winners). Most judges, if they didn’t know who you were, surely knew your steed.

In 1950, I borrowed Kenny Darling’s conformation show horse, Reno Rose. I was able to do this because Kenny was at Foxcroft and Foxcroft didn’t allow the girls to miss school to compete in horse shows. I finished seventh because the girl who was eighth fell off in the final ride-off.

The next year, 1951, I borrowed Mr. and Mrs. William Haggin Perry’s great mare, DynaFlo. I was reserve champion because DynaFlo went even better for the fellow they put on her for the ride off. Actually, I was put on a beast who had trotted the corner with its rider and the rider had not offered me her spurs when I was given her horse in the ride-off.

So DynaFlo not only won the Maclay, she also won the Ladies Hunter class the next night for Mrs. Perry. The mare was given to Watts Humphrey for a junior horse because the Perrys were going into racing and out of horse showing. A few more things about the Maclay back then: 1. The entry fee was $5. 2. My parents and I were given tickets for all sessions of the horse show that weekend. 3. Junior exhibitors were treated to a luncheon at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel both Saturday and Sunday.

My reserve championship also got me a headline in the Richmond Times- Dispatch newspaper and several weeks later I went to the Thanksgiving hunt breakfast at the Deep Run Hunt Club.

One of the first people to congratulate me that day was Mrs. James Ball, the sister of Miss Charlotte Noland of Foxcroft fame. She was sitting with Mrs. James Wheat, the wife of Mr. Wheat of Wheat First Securities. Mrs. Ball congratulated me on my reserve championship in the “Good Hands.”

Mrs. Wheat, who was blind, asked Mrs. Ball what the “Good Hands” meant. She explained that it was a first-class equitation class at Madison Square Garden.

Mrs. Wheat then asked me to let her feel those hands. So, with as much moxie as a 16-year-old could muster, I put my hands in front of Mrs. Wheat and she remarked to Mrs. Ball and myself “they are good hands” as she softly held them.