BTW, you're right about the difference between hunting and cross country. When you're hunting, there's always the option of going around the fence. Case in point: we were out on a hunter pace in September, came down a steep and heavily wooded hill (I had the mare back to a slow trot with her haunches under her, because the footing was loose, lots of gravel and good-sized rocks) and there was about a 3' coop sitting right at the base of the slope in the edge of the shade. Loose rocks had actually piled up against the takeoff side. I thought, "No momentum, bad footing, good size, jumping out into the light . . . nah" and pulled the mare around to the right.
Oh my gosh, that jump sounds deadly! Cross country isn't for the faint of heart, that's for sure. I saw a horrible accident on tv, the jump was big, at the top of a hill with a huge drop on the other side. One horse hit the jump with his chest, somersaulted over, the rider fell off, went to the bottom of the hill, the horse came down and landed on top of him. They never said what happened to that guy but he wasn't moving when they took him away on the stretcher. They took the jump down after that, nobody else had to try it.