Hunter Jumper Series Clears Top Rung In 2025
This past weekend’s Hunter Jumper show at the Moose Jaw Exhibition was the cherry topping off this season’s success story.
The series which has grown from four shows, then a three show circuit and finally growing to just two shows this year in what has turned out to be a multi-year success story.
A success story that took a lot of work as organizers tweaked the Hunter Jumper series literally on the fly.
A series which, despite clipping a top rail now and again, managed to eke out a nearly flawless run in 2025.
In the first show of the 2025 series in May there were 47 riders whereas the second show this past October weekend had a record 64 horses and 59 riders.
“i see those extra 20 horses in a horse show as quite an extravagant growth,” said Marci Perrin show secretary a Moose Jaw Exhibition Company general manager.
“Overall, looking back on it yes (I”m happy) we’re getting good feedback from the exhibitors and people on how to keep things moving smooth and what we could look at doing on future shows as well,” Perrin said.
That’s what the big take back was from this past weekend’s show office manager and show announcer Mel Burns said - it was the show and series is on the correct path.
“I think it’s slowly improving and Saskatchewan in general seems to be growing when in terms of horses and people being involved with their horses,” Burns said.
The horse industry was severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic With such things as increase fuel prices after the pandemic, hitting the industry hard,
The Hunter Jumper series and other horse shows at the Moose Jaw Exhibition were not immune from the past COVID-19 fuel cost blues.
“I feel like it’s not necessarily getting better, but people are getting more used to paying for gas. So the first thing you’re getting from paying that people are getting use to paying that,” she said.
In a roundabout way higher gas prices have actually benefitted the series in the long run.
Moose Jaw’s centralized location and easy access off the highway have figured big in the resurgence of equine events.
“You don’t want to drive 400 miles for a show that is only a day when you can come earn your points, earn your money over three days. It’s a lot more economically feasible for most people to (come to Moose Jaw.)” Burns said.
Perrin said the majority of people at October’s show stayed in local hotels.
Additionally, many participants bought fuel, restaurant meals, did some grocery shopping as well as regular shopping while they attended the show.
The local concession in the Golden Mile Arena did a booming business which kept four people employed over the weekend.
It was a great economic spinoff for the city of Moose Jaw.
“Its not as big of a thing when you think about barrel racing. But you did see them spending their money on fuel, rooms, restaurants, the liquor store obviously and shopping,” Perrin said.
Most of the economic fallout happens along the Thatcher Drive East retail strip.
“You think it’s not a tremendous effect on the economics in a small town but it’s not. The economic ripple is very large,” Burns said.
Additional feedback from participants was very positive and many are looking forward to coming to the show in the spring and next fall.
Word of mouth indicators point towards a series success in 2026 if the lessons learnt are applied and not forgotten.
“It’s sounding like it’s gonna be successful (next year). A couple of people from Manitoba are already talking about coming back for next year for the show and series. And we’ve had some interest from another trainer, who couldn’t make it work this time but is planning on coming and supporting the future,” Perrin said.
Next year series will be made up of two shows.
The spring show runs from May 7th - 10th.
The fall show runs October 1st - 4th.