IMHO this is why focusing on the judging standards is misplaced…
- It puts at best indirect pressure on the wrongdoers. Judges are not drugging horses. Competitors and trainers are. Properly disincentivizing/discouraging drugging means focusing on the people who are actually drugging. Test more often, test more randomly, test more effectively (include the ability to inspect/test the contents of syringes), and hand down punishments that hurt. A small fine doesn’t hurt. Even a big fine doesn’t hurt some people. Suspending the trainer just means the assistant trainer starts signing the blank. What hurts is setting down the HORSE for a significant period of time. That hurts EVERYONE. It hurts the rider/owner (loss of the ability to show the horse/have the horse shown). It hurts the trainer (lost revenue from taking the horse to shows). Having the horse suspended such that it may lose the ability to qualify for shows/year end awards-- that hurts.
Judges can only judge what walks into the ring. You can change the rules all day long. You can do whatever you want to the standards. If all that walks in are drugged horses-- the judge can only pin a drugged horse. I don’t think there is a SINGLE reputable judge that LIKES half asleep, drugged horses. I don’t think a single one WANTS to pin that. It’s not that they don’t get it, need better guidance, or need to be educated-- they can only pin what they see. Go to any A-rated show, it’s a SEA of similarly acting, similarly prepped-seeming horses. The judge can’t tell which is naturally quiet and which has mag on board. So all the judge can do is compare the performances against one another.
You may argue that if judges start pinning “brighter” rides, everyone will stop drugging so their horses can be brighter too. I don’t think that will happen for numerous reasons. First, it’s cheaper and easier to send the child/ammy in with a worn down horse. Your good pro can handle brightness and keep it from turning into frisky/an error-- your average child/ammy can’t. If these riders could ride that horse slightly on the edge of brilliance, they’d already be doing it. The worn down horse is what a lot of people are used to showing. Changing the judging standards isn’t going to change that. Second, that requires time/training and everyone wants to go go go show show show NOW. That’s why shortcuts are so prevalent.
There’s also some pressure to make competitors, on the whole, happy. Judges whose pinnings don’t seem logical to competitors don’t get asked back. If the horse that bucks gets pinned over the quiet plod along, competitors are going to complain about the judge and that will be the end of that judge being invited. Change the standards all day long, if the competitors/trainers don’t understand/like it the judge will become very unpopular and not get hired. Whereas if the penalties flow from being caught drugging-- that has nothing to do with the judge. I actually think focusing on penalties for drugging is the only thing that is going to result in more “clean” horses going in FOR judges to reward.
- Hunters is subjective and in any subjective sports, the standards must necessarily be flexible/subjective. You can write and re-write the standards and educate judges out the wazoo-- at the end of the day it will always be a subjective gut call. Just like figure skating. Just like dressage. Sure, there are directives but one judge’s 6 on a movement is another judge’s 8 and neither is WRONG. No matter how specific the instructions-- someone’s got to decide “was that a a display of spirit or of disobedience.” Seen in a split second, no video replay, with all the other moments of the round having to be watched too. You’re always going to get 4 judges who says it was spirit, 4 who saw it as disobedience, 1 who missed it and was looking down, and 1 who is nuts
Such is the nature of subjective sports.
I LIKE hunters being subjective. I don’t think it SHOULD become objective. But the subjectivity is why this isn’t like a policy that says “mail the letter within 45 days of the employee’s termination.” Sure, maybe there’s some subjectivity (does mail include UPS and Fed Ex? Are contractors employees?") but there’s also a level of objectivity (45 days) that is absent in hunter judging. I don’t want to ride against an objective scoresheet. That’s completely antithetical to what hunters is. And as long as there is subjectivity, efforts to “write better guidance” and educate judges is never going to really solve a problem WITH A DIFFERENT ORIGIN. The problem is not that the judging is poor. It’s really not. Judges know what they see. The problem is that some people would rather find quiet at the end of a needle than with training/experience.
- Empirical evidence shows you it doesn’t work. The APHA is a primo example. People were training horses to peanut roll. Why? It’s easier to “go slow” when the horse is trained with tie downs and tired out than it is to train actual slow legged movement through proper training. Horses can go REALLY SLOW with their heads at a normal level-- it’s just that it requires time and skill. Competitors wanted a shortcut. Riders were not capable of really teaching or even riding a well trained, slow going horse with impulsion. So out came the tie downs and the bleeding and the drugging.
And the APHA said “this looks bad for the optics of the sport.” And so they changed the judging standards.
And the very next day and the day after and the day after that-- everyone kept on peanut rolling. I am out of that world now, but from the videos I have seen it has not changed things at ALL. And it’s not because the judges need to be educated. They are fully capable of understanding what it means to be “level with the poll.” There literally could not BE a clearer, more objective standard than THAT. And yet it hasn’t changed things. Why? Because you don’t fix a problem in Alaska with a solution in Rhode Island. If drugging is the problem, you go after the people who drug. Not the judging.
