How does this happen?

Yes correcting my earlier remark. I should’ve said that that was the ideal situation. It’s probably rarely works out that way, although it might for some divisions at an event.

Yes on the pause in radio calls for an urgent situation. That can mean that several rider- jumps are never reported in.

Sometimes after the issue is cleared, course control will go back and check with each judge about all the fences that missed being called in during the urgent period. But that isn’t required, and it may not be feasible if there is already a lot of current radio traffic.

Also a note that if a jump judge makes a radio call, but was unknowingly talking over another jump judge, they won’t know that nobody heard their radio call. So they don’t have a reason to repeat it.

In general, Course Control will know that they may have missed some radio calls. But they do not always go back and try to get that information.

Control is really there to help manage the flow of riders on course, and to help avoid and/or coordinate the response to hazardous situations for riders. As has been pointed out, they are not official scorekeepers.

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You seem to have missed the point that final scores are NOT based on radio calls.

When there is doubt (based on what is WRITTEN on the score sheet, and the TD’s conversation with the jump judge) we give the rider the benefit of the doubt.

But “doubt” about what is heard on the radio doesn’t even enter into it.

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I never said they were.

I did say that only the score sheet is the official score. That course Control can be a source of clarifying info, but isn’t always. As you say, course control is not scorekeeping.

I write down number, description of horse and what the rider is wearing every time so as not to make any mistakes.

I’ve always jump judged with a partner for a couple of the events by me which really does help. I write the score while my partner radios it in. We’re really lucky to have so many volunteers.

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Even without pre-numbering, jump judges get confused about horses going out of order, and mark a stop (or whatever) to the wrong horse.

(I am a TD) In my jump judge briefing I always say:
"The three most common causes of inquiries are

  1. It wasn’t me
  2. It wasn’t a refusal (or whatever other fault)
  3. I had not presented

If there is doubt, we give the rider the benefit of the doubt, but if there is no doubt we back up our jump judges.
Your job is to make enough notes on the score sheets to eliminate that doubt."

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I do not think there was ever a time when the rules allowed you to continue after elimination. Whether or not you were “waved off” might vary from competition to competition. But the rules did NOT allow you to continue.

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I am in Ontario, and this was 20 years ago, maybe longer.

I believe (but may be misremembering) that the rule changed when a rider who was eliminated was allowed to carry on, and then had a serious fall.

eta. i do not know whether it was a Rule, or just practice/policy

I just wanted to point out that it sometimes the other way round. An (experienced) jump judges reports rider as “off course”, when they are NOT “off course.”

For instance,

  • The obstacle had an option, and the jump judge did not realize it was an option
  • The rider jumps the “wrong” jump, and then circles around and jumps the “right” jump. This typically happens at something like a down bank, when the Training rider jumps (sometimes with multiple refusals) the Novice down bank (wrong jump), and then circles around to jump the (right) Training down bank.

It is because of this possibility that some competitions (especially unrecognized ones) let a rider continue after going “off course”, even though it is scored as a TE.

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There was a similar situation in California, probably about the same time frame. A rider was eliminated for refusals. The jump judge told her to leave the course. The rider ignored the jump judge and continued. A couple of jumps later she had a bad fall, and was killed. Her family sued everyone involved with the competition, but without success.

That was when the US rules introduced a $100 penalty for not leaving the course when told you are eliminated.

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I didn’t see the error. She was a 10 yr kid on a borrowed pony who was having the time of her life at Starter, which isn’t recognized anyway. She was already crying…maybe they wanted to throw her a bone?

If a running tally by someone isn’t being done, how do they keep track of 3 refusals for an elimination? Not being argumentative, just asking. Where I volunteer we radio in all jumps, and they give us jump judges a warning—one more refusal and this person is done.

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I know it’s an unfortunate situation when the results don’t catch something that has happened on course. But a few things to note (from a cross country controller here🙋‍♀️)

  • we are a volunteer based sport. I’m sure that the volunteer who was judging that fence didn’t wake up that morning and say “I’d like to cheat so and so out of a placing”. As unfortunate as it is, mistakes happen. We need to be careful of being too critical of these volunteers as if we have to go into paying people for these roles, good luck affording the sport
  • from a controllers stand point, not all jumps are reporting jumps which makes radio traffic a little lighter. Often we will tell a JJ at an “easier” fence that they don’t need to report the jump unless there is a problem. If the JJ missed the rider missing the jump, the controller wouldn’t have any idea. Human error.
  • surely the rider didn’t know she missed the jump. An honest mistake.
  • I know that I have been on both ends of the mistake spectrum and I have to say it usually works itself out in the end. It’s the whole principle of “I didn’t get the dressage score I deserved” at one show and “dang I got lucky with that score” at the next.
    I’m sorry that it happened. But it happens.
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I cannot speak for this event, I can only speak for my own area (Area 1) experience.

It is common to have multiple fences assigned to one Jump Judge (JJ), including at our end of year Area championships. JJs are rare and this is often done by necessity. My last JJ trip, I was watching four fences. It’s important the JJ gets out there early and finds the best spot for the best vantage. If you find yourself in this position, sometimes its best to wait for the rider to finish/pass all fences before you write on your score card. Depends on the speed of rider and whether you have another competitor coming up right after.

Most events I’ve volunteered for have requested that radio channels only be used to radio in stops/refusals, emergencies or brief contact between parties like control, officials, and medical personnel. I’ve(JJs) even been specifically briefed to stay off the air unless required by TDs before. Some of the bigger events radio after each jump, but it’s a lot of clutter and background noise making it very difficult to track every contribution.

Regarding this situation, my best guess is that the JJ was looking down at the score sheet and missed that they did a fence drive-by. It sucks, but it happened. The rider should have realized at some point and stepped forward.

As a career JJ who seems to jump judge more than actually compete these days, let me just say that it’s a thankless, tiresome job, with a lot of distractions, noise, competitor personalities, and moving parts. I am always dog-bone tired after a shift. We are volunteers. We are not paid. If you (collective) want service-level performance, including 100% error free service, consider paying someone for it.

Thank your volunteers.

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If you read my first reply (#37, I think) I said
“The radio is useful for keeping track in real time, for calling for the EMT, vet, fence repair, the need for a hold on course, or identifying when a rider has too many (cumulative) stops on course.”

This is super frustrating, and I hope just a weird coincidence of multiple errors.

I will say, I missed a fence a few years ago (early in the course), they let me finish, and the TD followed me after the finish flags to let me know I was TE. I started to (mildly) argue - forgetting a fence, going off course in my dressage test, etc is just NOT something I would ever have the propensity to do. I let it go to go take care of my horse, I wasn’t in the ribbons anyway. My friend walks up to me shortly after and goes “you galloped right past fence 5 you bozo” and sure enough, I watched the video and I was probably a 20m circle away and just… went right by.

I did go find the TD and apologize profusely, I wasn’t by any means ugly about it, but I was so certain there was no way I missed a fence, and sure enough I had.

Hoping this rider maybe didn’t realize either, but it doesn’t take away the frustration of this happening, especially at a championship class.

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I do try to volunteer as much as I can. I have JJ before in the past - we have been given radios and are told to say “Rider X clear over jump Y” each jump. I’m not sure if this is an Area VI thing, but we are required to say what happens at each jump. Additionally, they have different channels for different communications so not all communications are coming through the jump judging channel. From reading the responses, it sounds like this may not be the case everywhere, but in this particular event (and others I have JJ at in this area) that is how they do it.

I do want to say that I realize JJ are volunteers. I realize it is a lot of work. I volunteer and thank volunteers for their time at events and try to let them know they are appreciated. Obviously we couldn’t do this sport without volunteers. It is possible to be upset with this situation while still being thankful for volunteers. I also want to say that I’m inclined to think that this rider really didn’t know since she did purchase her video. You don’t buy video if you want to hide something lol.

I think my extreme frustration to this news is due to the fact this is NOT the first issue with this particular event. It is the third:

  1. “Losing” a score sheet and just removing 2 20s from someone’s score and thinking that was acceptable. (This WAS eventually remedied after someone went in and complained about it, however I know for a fact the 3rd place rider still has yet to recieve her ribbon or prize from the shows error.)
  1. Award a lowest placed amateur award to a professional (w/o even checking with the pro to confirm, BTW). And then when they changed the award to the lowest placed amateur, I found 3 other ammy scores that were lower than the person they chose. I inquired about it and am waiting to hear back.
  1. Rider with a TE finishing on a number

So, yeah. I guess perhaps one of these incidents would be frustrating in itself, but having them all 3 combined is just ridiculous for a championship level event that was heavily marketed / promoted.

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Useful, sure. But in post 41, you said there is no requirement that jjs radio in each fence, or even that they have radios. So the natural question is, how does the controller know about refusals—or even emergencies—if there is no requirement that the jjs have radios or radio in every fence the rider jumps?

Good question.

If the rider has 2 stops at fence 7 and 2 at fence 8, and they are within sight of each other, the jump judge at fence 8 probably knows the rider has 4 stops and is eliminated.

But if there is one stop at fence 3, one at fence 6, one at fence 10, and one at fence 16, without radios it might slip through the cracks and not get called off the course. But back at scoring they will still get an E.

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When you say a “state championship” do you mean a USEA area? If this is the same show from the other thread where they were putting people into the championship who didn’t enter, it sounds like it had significant organizational challenges.

That said, I can actually see how this might happen anywhere fairly easily.

Often riders who miss fences do so because they also missed it on the course walk. IOW, they might never know there was a fence #6 in the woods until they see the scores. This fall I was walking the course at Seneca when they pulled up a UL pro at the jump we were walking past for missing a jump a few back. His response was "shoot, there was a mound jump? this is my 3rd ride . . . " Which is to say, the rider might not be dishonest in not coming forward.

If a horse doesn’t appear at all on the JJ scoresheet, they would probably go back and try to confirm with the JJ whether they in fact saw that number go through. (IOW, did they just forget to mark that horse down, or did it not come through). But absent a clear memory that they never saw that number, and nobody complaining about it, they might give the rider the benefit of the doubt. I’ve had the reverse happen - the JJ didn’t write down my # as I went through. IIRC the TD asked a few questions (how many strides between elements) and they didn’t E me.

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Unfortunately, a 2nd vs a TE is not the same as “oh, i didnt get the dressage score I wanted”

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