Can You successfully Challenge Cross Country Time Penalties

[OverandOnward]

[QUOTE=judybigredpony;8934681]
What if I said the TD gave it a “Judgement call” and reversed the standings and gave the protester the placing…and this is after the ribbons were in process of being handed out when a last ditch effort was put forth…they had apparently complained earlier before the last 30 minutes and were told time is time…30 seconds into ribbons being handed out they arrived with a watch in hand…I am just trying to figure out how this works if my riders ever have an issue…it’s always good to have tools in your box and this was a whooper of a tool…you can protest time…there were No Holds and No one else in that division had a complaint…[/QUOTE]

I get it that the complaining rider began the complaint prior to the 30 minute time limit, but nonetheless, I am surprised that this is possible. As are you, OP, clearly.

Final placing and ribbons would need to be held up until the TD declares the problem resolved, I would think. The TD would know that someone was on their way with more evidence and hold things up. If the additional evidence wasn’t made known originally …

… anyway, you can call the USEA and ask the question. They will give you a better answer. It won’t be an ‘official complaint’ if you don’t want to go that far. If you do, they can tell you how to do that as well.

I don’t know if this would be part of an event evaluation or not. It’s more of a rules thing, I would think.

[enjoytheride]

At the last HT I was in the office helping answer questions and doing scoring.

I know we had some issues with the clocks not being synced up right so some people had very whacky times. Usually the clocks are atomic and there isn’t an issue. Also, in this area the controller seems to control where people stop and start when doing a hold on course, although sometimes it is hard to get your jump judges bold and fast enough to stop someone. Another issue is that using the online scoring system the scores update instantly, as soon as you hit enter. The system doesn’t “finalize” scores until you hit that button but it’s still available for people to see. So if you fat finger someone’s dressage score as a 128 they will show up 30 seconds later in a total panic. Oooops.

Knowing this I’d wait a bit and see if anything changes before storming to the secretary’s office!

[kcmel]

@enjoytheride;8935487

Another issue is that using the online scoring system the scores update instantly, as soon as you hit enter. The system doesn’t “finalize” scores until you hit that button but it’s still available for people to see. So if you fat finger someone’s dressage score as a 128 they will show up 30 seconds later in a total panic. Oooops.

This happened to me at my very first horse trial. My dressage score showed up as a 65! I was so disappointed and miserable! I did go and talk to the scorer, and they figured out what happened.

[ACMEeventing]

I was at a HT in Aiken showing novice. I had two stops at the same fence and then cleared. So, I lost a touch of time but not a ton and I was never overtaken. The timer recorded me coming in at over 11 minutes. My time faults were something like 211.

I argued until the cows came home. I even had helmet cam footage of the entire course with a time/date stamp and it showed the stops. My footage showed me coming in about 15 seconds over time. I lost the battle and my official score for the show was something ridiculous like 320 pp.

Obviously there was a transcription error somewhere.

I thought the whole thing was absurd. If I had been out on course for over 10 minutes they would have sent a search party. I think it just depends on the show and on the TD as to how rational they are with a legitimate error.

[Janet]

You can always make an inquiry.

But usually JUST having a stop watch showing a different time won’t be convincing.

But there may be some other extenuating circumstances that you won’t know about until you make an inquiry (e.g., a hold on course, passed, or passed by, another horse, illegible or “typo” in the horse number or the time, stop watches switched, timer hit the wrong button).

If there is some other reason to believe your time is suspect, and the time on your watch is credible, it may be accepted.

[Ajierene]

About two years ago I was riding at Novice level on a leased horse where my trainer was not present due to other obligations. I was excitedly texting her after cross country about how well we did, well within time and everything.

She was on the other end wondering if I read something wrong because the live scoring said I was over a minute late. I have not done a ton of recognized shows and she thought I just got confused about rules or the different times listed on the course map.

Meanwhile (luckily within the protest time), I wandered over to pick up my dressage test and look at my standings. It is there that I noticed the time discrepancy. I went to the secretary and asked about it. She said she would look into it. The scorer came down a few minutes later and let me know he fat fingered my time into the system. He fixed it and I finished in 2nd (no time faults).

[JER]

What I would like is to have a fat finger work in my favor.

Like getting the numbers reversed on my dressage test so my 42 is a 24. Stuff like that. Or my -2 for error of course is subtracted from my final converted penalty score, giving me a score that’s 2 points better.

Just once, is all I ask.

[kcmel]

[QUOTE=JER;8935882]
What I would like is to have a fat finger work in my favor.
Or my -2 for error of course is subtracted from my final converted penalty score, giving me a score that’s 2 points better.

Just once, is all I ask.

:)[/QUOTE]

This happened recently to my dressage trainer who was riding my 5 YO at a schooling show. She was riding the 2 event training tests, that she’s not that familiar with, and made an error in one. We couldn’t figure out why that score was better than the clean test, until we saw the score sheet and saw they had subtracted instead of adding 2. (At a previous schooling show, she added an initial halt/salute to the training A test, but the judge didn’t notice. I think she is just lucky like that :lol:!).

[judybigredpony]

“But usually JUST having a stop watch showing a different time won’t be convincing.” Ahh but it did

Please understand our time was fine, we didn t have an issue…it just changed the standings…

No holds, no one was passed, no one came forward with any other evidence…It was just strange, the TD was reluctant to come back to Scoring area, ribbons were being handed out which should have made the whole thing Motte and over…No One Else seemed to have a single issue with time…Leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth to see something like this and it get swept under the rug, ribbon handed to mollify someone holding a stop watch, after the 30 minutes are up…Rules are rules, some clearly open to interpretation, but time is time, unless there were numbers transposed or clearly other riders had time issues…Season is over lets hope 2017 is going to be fun

[Highflyer]

If it bothered you, fill out an event evaluation form.

[Jealoushe]

I had my watch AND video evidence and they still wouldn’t accept my challenge. The timing guy had already gone home. They had me as too slow on my 17h TB gelding going BN…we were over 10 seconds under the time on my watch and my video recorder.

Their answer was “it’s up to the timer and this is what he has down”.

It took me from finishing 2nd to finishing 6th. I wasn’t happy.

[Beam_Me_Up]

Just out of curiosity, do you know how many time penalties they were assessed before the correction? What I’m getting from this thread is that if you are assessed a lot, and your ride appeared normal (no stops/passing etc) you might be more likely to catch a break due to a presumed error. Getting a few seconds removed sounds more difficult.

[PaperPony]

Look at the XC elapsed time of the rider who finished in 8th place in this event in the Open Prelim division: http://www.evententries.com/livescoring/15969.html

I protested my time since I rode directly after her but was unable to get it overturned.

There is no way anyone can ride a preliminary course in 43 seconds even if they were on a cheetah.

[bornfreenowexpensive]

[QUOTE=Highflyer;8936269]
If it bothered you, fill out an event evaluation form.[/QUOTE]

I don’t think it bothered them…but since as many of these stories show…it is all over the place when these sort of errors are fixed and when they aren’t.

In my case, since I’ve been in the situation before…I didn’t waste my time challenging since more often than not, they do not change it. If I had been on a sale horse…I would have pushed it a bit more. Since I was on my keeper horse…and know that I more than likely was pushing close to Speed Penalties… I just let it go.

[OverandOnward]

Maybe I should post this, but I will. This info is based on my experience as a scorer using the computerized system, and working with other scorers, several times.

Riders need to pay much more attention to their posted scores as soon as they go up. Under the current system, scoring errors are easily made, despite the best intentions of even experienced scorers (and some scorers aren’t so experienced). Too many riders are casual about this, maybe don’t do it at all. If you are busy and it’s hard to check, designate someone to be your Score Watcher. Check timely and when there is a discrepancy with any score, not just cross-country, follow up politely and timely.

Riders need to be aware of when scores are posted, officially, as opposed to when they are visible online but not yet “posted”. This current system process of making scores visible as they are entered can be a major confusion and disruption to the scoring process.

It is very, very easy for scoring errors to happen that won’t be fixed unless someone on the rider’s side catches them. Frankly, some scorers are more diligent than others about double-checking. Sometimes a scorer is inexperienced with the system, and maybe eventing as well. A scorer may simply not realize that a particular score is odd and out of the norm. I’ve even seen scorers entering only the minutes and not the seconds because they didn’t understand why the seconds mattered. (Went back and entered the seconds and that cleaned up piles of time faults, as well as the rabble mob chanting outside the scoring office. :winkgrin: )

There can be all kinds of unintentional major and minor discrepancies on the score sheets that scorers do their best to cope with, from illegible rider numbers to scores written on the wrong line to what-have-you. And there is a considerable communications distance from the scorers to the original source of the errors. Piles of score sheets are being continuously delivered in no particular order, and everyone wants those scores entered and posted asap.

Scorers mean well and try their best, but it is not an easy job. IMO scorer seems to be one of the least appreciated jobs, but it is one of THE key jobs of the event! Competition is all about the score!

At every horse trials, thank your scorers as well as your jump judges and other officials! They are often less visible in an office so you’ll have to go out of your way to do it. But scorers deserve a great deal of credit for a smoothly-run event.

[pony_grandma]

Our state eventing association, IEA, has been recently collecting ‘stories’ (we’ve got some doseys) that highlight rules and issues to benefit the education of our rider members and volunteers. Your experiences here won’t go un-noticed! Stories tend to make their points more unforgettable. I am sure that many have learned from the recent threads (the start box one as an example) - as well as the number of incidents has shown me - how much confusion, and room for error, is really out there.

And I specifically intend to stress the volunteers education because that is the bedrock of your scoring. This thread, and others, will be shared with starters, finish timers and fence judges.

I also want to add that a TD was adamant to me that they have a fiduciary relationship with the volunteer positions. They have to rely on them. If TDs second guessed or shot down volunteers continually we wouldn’t have any. I see the need to build and maintain volunteer education. USEA needs some training videos for each working position. I am working to try to establish this within our own organization so that our HT can provide the best competition experience that we can.

[OverandOnward]

[QUOTE=PaperPony;8936670]
Look at the XC elapsed time of the rider who finished in 8th place in this event in the Open Prelim division: http://www.evententries.com/livescoring/15969.html

I protested my time since I rode directly after her but was unable to get it overturned.

There is no way anyone can ride a preliminary course in 43 seconds even if they were on a cheetah.[/QUOTE]

Looking at the other divisions in that link, there are possible timing errors in several of them, just based on times that are way off from most of the division. Some horses appeared to be walking around their course? Others have rockets strapped to their tails? :winkgrin:

Stops can account for some, but that doesn’t seem to be the predictor in these division scores. There are time penalties of 50+ and 120+ in more than one division, as well as some that are about a minute under the other riders.

When in the scorer job, I would always double-check more than 30 seconds to a minute’s difference with what appears to be a fairly standard range of times in that division. The scores in these divisions are showing some scattered times that are 2 and 3 minute differences with the rest of the division, both over and under time. Maybe the times are valid - that can certainly happen with several very green entrants. But it would be worth a second look. Especially as these outliers show up in virtually every division, I’d be concerned about the time scoring process.

With the kind of extreme, impossible discrepancies you experienced I would think they would ask course control as well. Course control would have been aware if one rider wasn’t progressing and was out of sync with the others. Or if one rider was blazing around and passing other riders like a steeplechaser on crank. :winkgrin:

[Hilary]

May I also point out that except for a very few competitions (the olympics, Rolex etc), we are mostly competing for a ribbon that costs $1.50 and some bragging rights. When you decide to make more than a basic inquiry, you will likely be holding up your division and sometimes the entire event while you get your watches squared away, and that will leave a bad taste in the mouth of your fellow competitors. Please think about the grand scheme of things when deciding what to protest.

Yes, if you have a sale horse you want the record as spotless as possible, but if the horse is genuinely good? One event with a scoring flub shouldn’t matter that much.

Also, statistically speaking, if mistakes are made not in our favor, they are also likely being made IN our favor. But few people will come back and say “hey, my watch says you need to give me 20 time faults”.

[Janet]

[QUOTE=pony grandma;8936800]
Our state eventing association, IEA, has been recently collecting ‘stories’ (we’ve got some doseys) that highlight rules and issues to benefit the education of our rider members and volunteers.[/QUOTE] Are you (or someone from IEA) going to be at the annual meeting? Would you be willing to discuss this at the Affiliates meeting? I think it would be valuable to all.

[Janet]

[QUOTE=pony grandma;8936800]

I also want to add that a TD was adamant to me that they have a fiduciary relationship with the volunteer positions. They have to rely on them. If TDs second guessed or shot down volunteers continually we wouldn’t have any.[/QUOTE]

It is a balance, The TD needs to back up the volunteers, but also give the competitor the benefit of the doubt. The hard part is determining if there really IS “doubt”, or just “he said - she said”.

And remember, if you don’t like the answer you get from the TD, you can always ask to speak to the PoGJ.