sounds an awful lot like what they do at the trainings. Outlier scores are discussed. And recently, at shows like CDIs with multiple judges, there is a judges panel that looks over the scores before they are made official and if there are big discrepancies, resolve them (sorry I do not know the methodology of resolving them. )
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THIS. a poking-out nose is not an indicator of correct connection. Often these horses have “poll highest” but they are pressing through their lower neck/chest - there is a bulge in the lower neck seen from the side.
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I think this is a good point “poll at the highest” or “nose in front of or on the vertical” aren’t the be all end all. A horse who’s nose is or occasionally is behind the vertical doesn’t deserve that “1” score because everything else being judged could be better than the horse with his nose elsehwere.
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I would say not at all how it works now. Gait quality is taught as the standard first step in deciding score, and it was not taught in any of the sessions I have scribed for, L, r and R, that gait quality requires correct gaits to have it.
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Good lord. You really think Judges dont look for correct gaits? I have heard them count 1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4… for the walk… and 1,2,1,2 for the trot… etc… Many discussions on “is that walk really lateral?”… “what if its lateral in the collected walk but not the extended - a result of rider interference?”…
There is “correct”… like a hunter, flat but correct. Then there is “correct PLUS”, with extra cadence, extra overstep… of course one scores higher all else being equal.
edited for spelling
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My personal confusion lies in the phrase “gait quality.” What is that measuring exactly? If that is first and foremost is the quality being measured how the horse moves or how consistently the horse moves?
I’m probably asking this question badly. What I mean is, if you have a great moving horse but is inconsistent throughout the test, should that horse place above a consistent horse who doesn’t have that natural wow factor?
QUALITY (OF GAIT)
The quality of a gait refers to its freedom, elasticity, flexibility, looseness, fluency and amplitude
From:
https://www.usdf.org/EduDocs/Competition/2015_USDF_Glossary_.pdf
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May I suggest you read the FEI dressage rules? They very clearly define each gait, each movement, the directives for each level, and terms such as “quality of gaits.” It’s amazing how many people pursue this sport without ever actually familiarizing themselves with its basic rules.
To answer the second part of your question, a consistent test by a sub-par mover may score 6-7 across the board. An inconsistent test by a fabulous mover may score 8s for the good movements and 6 or below for the ones not as well executed. Which test ends up scoring higher will depend on which movements get the high scores. Coefficient movements make a big difference and if that’s where major mistakes are, the consistent but less flashy horse can easily come out ahead. If that’s where the 8s are, the great mover will come out ahead. And the collective marks may be higher overall for the better/moving horse too.
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That makes sense thank you. How does that play into my other question?
Ummmm, no. I have take Sir SpooksAlot to Dressage shows (wasted money) and then 2 years of QH shows with a QH friend. I took him to major QH shows in my capital and the first 3 he was mellow, the last one he was so worked up that he pawed the matless stall with red clay under the shavings so much that he was red the next morning and everything in our adjacent tack stall was covered in red. Everything. I spend hours walking him around the outdoor arena once and he got calm, only later to be crazy hypervigilant because the angle of the shadows changed that he was a super tense ride.
It is NOT as simple of hauling all horses to lots of shows (and spending $$$$$$$$$$$ doing so) to get them used to showing and getting the same scores as they’d get at home. BS on Le Goff’s comments as they apply to me and I suspect many other rider, certainly not all. I competed lots of horses up the levels but Sir SpooksAlot is an orchid. It’s not as simple as arriving early, walking the horse around the ring, standing on the judges stand, blah blah blah for some horses.
I hear you on many of your posts here.
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I agree that trail rides and hound walking are not at all the same as showing.
I also believe some horses are never ideal in different environments. My first horse was a lunatic in new places. I owned him for 15 years and he never changed, even with professionals assisting me along the way.
@pluvinel, do you currently show? Perhaps if you do not, that would explain your perspective.
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That’s simply not true. Horses are not that stupid, they are sensitive to circumstances. My CDE pony also shows in ridden dressage and has more miles in trail riding than I can count. There’s something about the routine of driven dressage that hits his nervous spot. He’s fine in the ring, he’s fine warming up. He gets a case of the nerves when we are in the holding area for our soundness figure 8 just prior to the bell. That’s when his prehensile tongue goes over the bit, leaving FEI vets, stewards and random strangers with their arm elbow deep trying to fix it before the bell rings.
This does not happen at any other time. Not at that same spot before, doing that same thing before cones, not for vet checks before marathon. Certainly not at paper chases 
Given that a variety of options are available in driving to prevent this, after trying a bit lifter (fail) and working through a variety of mouthpieces, including a Bowman Ultimate Tongue Relief (he got his tongue over it which is mind boggling) I opted to bypass the more restrictive, harsher options and let the problem get resolved by familiarity and positive experiences. It takes time, time costs money but it’s probably the best horsemanship approach for this animal. You may disagree, but I suspect you are in the minority.
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Yes, some horses are like that. I also owned one. From the day he was delivered to me (he was three), he was spooky and reactive, very herd-bound. He was easy to start under saddle and train, but never good at shows. He was fancy and talented, but never was the show horse I wanted. He was a little better with an experienced trainer, but always very tense and spooky in the show ring.Some of his siblings were equally difficult. I had him for 13 years.
IMO, a good horse person will not force a horses to be something it can’t be and find them a different career that is less stressful. I did and that horse is flourishing.
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Absolutely but this is a different type of horse than a green to shows horse who is being told to stay home lest they “dumb down” the scores. You don’t find out if your horse hates being a show horses without taking it to shows, and you don’t gain show experience by trail riding or roading hounds.
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True. I will rarely criticize a rider who has a bad ride. Schooling shows exist for a reason. I attended one recently and saw an amateur rider get flustered and excuse herself. An experienced trainer had some yikes moments with a fancy young horse.
Sure, there are trainers I would label “masters” who can train even though most difficult horse to be an obedient partner. Good luck finding one. There are also trainers who get complete submission through force. It’s easier to find one of those and I avoid them.
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Thanks for doing the lifting of finding the official educational document definition. This is in line with how judge trainers used the term with the various educational groups I mentioned. It became hard for a horse who didn’t have that fluency and amplitude of gaits to move up in score for anything as it was taught. I’ve seen that act out real time in how my horses score, even when the one with very food gaits had bad tests and the one with less impressive gaits was very good.
I have had judges for whom I scribed get into rhythm, steadiness, correct use of hind end, etc. But that was not taught as first step in scoring for the educational series I scribed for, and it is generally the judges who have trained multiple horses up the levels who look for correct rhythm and correct use of the body most.
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That makes sense.
At the lower levels it’s easiest to score natural fluency highest. At the higher levels where it’s all more talented horses, actual training correctness matters more. This is analogous to the precocious teen who flies through highschool and college with minimal sustained effort, gets a bit lazy, then learns how to work in grad school where everyone is also talented and details matter.
That said I think there is a basic disagreement here. Some people feel the winning international horses are basically correct, that the huge trot is a wonderful thing, and that being BTV or in DAP is a momentary aberration or wobble, not inherent to the performance. Other people feel that the entire performance of the huge trot with exaggerated front legs requires BTV and DAP and is inherently a corruption of correct movement.
It is true that the best extended trot that stays totally two beat and not BTV looks nothing like the winning trots today, and might not even be recognized as an extended trot in that context.
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For me, and this is just my own personal journey, dressage is only a way for me to learn better physical communication with my horses through a refined, tried and true set of aids. Over the decades i’ve just made up my own. Not in a ring, but in the woods, moving my horse through and around dense trees. I’ve learned what little movements move what part of my horse around stuff. And sometimes they (my little weird thingies i do up there on a horse) work…and if my coach can describe what she wants to see, and what i should be feeling, then i can get us there. And sometimes my coach can pull out of her generous bag-of-tricks rein/leg/body techniques that will describe to my horse better what i’m asking. I want to avail myself of all i can suck-up in the next few years of my riding life (i’m 69) and just…learn.
About scores (and i maybe shouldn’t even be commenting on this thread)because i’m ambivalent. But this whole thing about flashy movers and correct movers… I think my goal is to try to interpret (with coach’s help!) what those tests are looking for and try to get my horse and i there, correctly and beautifully. I feel that the art of dressage, the sublime beauty of human-horse connection, will produce a kind of ‘flashy’ of it’s own accord. The unison.
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For the record, I have a very downhill hony with a low set neck. We went to our second ever recognized dressage show a couple of weekends ago, and I was thrilled with the results. It’s difficult to get her to stay off her forehand, and it’s been an ongoing journey to find that balance between letting her move over her back into the contact while also keeping her off her forehand, but I digress.
We did two tests, Training 1 and First 1. First 1 was supposed to get changed to Training 2 and didn’t, but I wasn’t too worried since we weren’t after scores anyways so we just did it for funsies.
We got 63% for our Training test, and 59% for our First test. And I’m ecstatic. Our Training test was not perfect, but the parts I rode correctly were rewarded. Lots of 7s, a few 6s, even an 8 for our final centerline. What brought the score down was the walk work (which is influential, as you all know), she gets a bit anticipatory and goes a bit tense and occasionally lateral. So 5s for that, she did it but it wasnt as good. I thought the judge was incredibly fair though. He recognized that I’m working with a downhill horse, gave us credit for getting her level and off her forehand. We even got a 7 for our gaits, she was REALLY on it for that test.
The first level test wasn’t as great, but still fair. She had a bit of a harder time bending, same issues with the walk, and I forgot where I was going in the canter work so she thought my hesitancy was her needing to trot, but otherwise similar scores.
I also watched other tests for the other horses and looked at how he scored them (scores were posted online). I saw no bias whatsoever. The gaits objective might have gotten a decent score, but if the movement was subpar he scored it accordingly. We got better scores than some warmbloods, worse scores than some REALLY fancy ponies.
It was really encouraging, actually. I had been anticipating mid-50s scores for a decent test, just based on how my horse is, for both shows I’ve gone to. I found, though, that if I ride correctly and accurately, I probably could get to a 67%. Maybe even higher. As it was, I was SO excited to see that 63%!
Not sure what this contributes, other than I feel like, for average or less-than-average horses, maybe the judging is getting more fair. A fancy, expressive horse will still probably score way higher riding the exact same test as my hony, but I think that’s just how it is going to always be. It was nice seeing our correct test beat a fancy, less-correct test though!
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Pictures? 
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