My Musings on the Obvious Differences Between Dressage and Hunter/Jumper Shows

[Merry]

Okay, so I’ve just returned from my assignment to cover the USAEquestrian Dressage Freestyle Championship and World Cup League Finals at Los Angeles Equestrian Center. Yes, I was the proverbial fish out of water, yet I did learn to swim! So, neophyte dressage queen that I am, I shall now point out the striking differences between dressage and hunter/jumpers when it comes to the actual showing:

1. The actual name of the event: Well, I mean, could it have been any more of a freakin’ mouthful?

2. The awards: Let’s see, at Indio this year my girlfriend won a $2.99 mint julep cup that you have to tilt just right in order to see the words “Desert Series” etched into the thin plating. In one of Debbie Mc Donald’s classes, she won this gorgeous onyx and 1/2 carat diamond lapel pin! She’s showing it to me and I admit I turned rather green and sighed to her husband, Bob, “Gee, the last two rated shows I went to I won an embroidered baseball cap and a Beanie Baby.”

3. The tackroom setups: Our shows, it’s a duel to see who can out-gauche their neighbor. At this world-calibre dressage show, I was lucky to find a logo on the token awnings. Oh, I think one barn had a couple of pots of silk flowers. No sod. No gazebo. No fake fountains.

4. The personal attention: Debbie dismounts from winning her freestyle championship and immediately someone hands her a small glass of very chilled white wine. I’m lucky if someone splashes some grape Gatorade in my face.

5. Ah, finally, a similarity!The food at the concession stand was highway robbery. A pre-wrapped sandwich was $6.00. It’s comforting that some things are the same universally.

“You just keep thinkin’, Butch. That’s what you’re good at.” – The Sundance Kid

[Merry]

Okay, so I’ve just returned from my assignment to cover the USAEquestrian Dressage Freestyle Championship and World Cup League Finals at Los Angeles Equestrian Center. Yes, I was the proverbial fish out of water, yet I did learn to swim! So, neophyte dressage queen that I am, I shall now point out the striking differences between dressage and hunter/jumpers when it comes to the actual showing:

1. The actual name of the event: Well, I mean, could it have been any more of a freakin’ mouthful?

2. The awards: Let’s see, at Indio this year my girlfriend won a $2.99 mint julep cup that you have to tilt just right in order to see the words “Desert Series” etched into the thin plating. In one of Debbie Mc Donald’s classes, she won this gorgeous onyx and 1/2 carat diamond lapel pin! She’s showing it to me and I admit I turned rather green and sighed to her husband, Bob, “Gee, the last two rated shows I went to I won an embroidered baseball cap and a Beanie Baby.”

3. The tackroom setups: Our shows, it’s a duel to see who can out-gauche their neighbor. At this world-calibre dressage show, I was lucky to find a logo on the token awnings. Oh, I think one barn had a couple of pots of silk flowers. No sod. No gazebo. No fake fountains.

4. The personal attention: Debbie dismounts from winning her freestyle championship and immediately someone hands her a small glass of very chilled white wine. I’m lucky if someone splashes some grape Gatorade in my face.

5. Ah, finally, a similarity!The food at the concession stand was highway robbery. A pre-wrapped sandwich was $6.00. It’s comforting that some things are the same universally.

“You just keep thinkin’, Butch. That’s what you’re good at.” – The Sundance Kid

[2Dogs]

Boy you guys have gotten some really great
prizes. Last time I won anything at Indio, it was a free bottle of horse tail detangler. Now, my friends and I in the really old seniors thought that having the chilled wine BEFORE our classes always worked the best, particularly for one of the older equitation classes like the PCHA. See, even if we had a rotten round, we didn’t care or even thought it had been a good round. We were happy.
But boy oh boy do I envy the timing of classes being set for the dressage dollies: I have such a hard time adjusting my miner’s light on my new helmet for those “late afternoon” amateur classes.

[Cactuskate]

Now Beezer, Merry was trying her darndest to be civilized. She only told me ONE dirty story about her youth and Jimmy Williams. I thought that showed extreme restraint.

And I’m telling you the cashmere thing was working!

“The older I get, the better I used to be, but who the heck cares!”

[FlightCheck]

re: the jump ring steward…often known to say,

"No, da*nit, you can’t go Next, it’s not your time! I don’t care that you have 17 more horses to ride cross country today!
“Hey! Quit trying to sneak in the ring before your turn!”
“Don’t you people have watches? Yeah, YOU in the red coat: your ride time is THREE FIFTEEN. Not one minute before.”
~ring steward disappears under a torrent of surging riders and horses, all trying to get show jumping done with so as to drive 12 hours home~

[Liz_Steacie]

at the Royal - Swarovski gave the winners a large lump of crystal that was engraved, and some significant prize money. The sparkly quarter sheet, polos and browband were just on loan for the presentation and demonstration ride. In the past Swarovski also gave crystal statuettes on a rosewood base.

Also, the Diamond legacy Award was given in 2001 at the CDI Batavia (at Paxton Farms), at the NEDA Dressage Show in Halifax, MA, and at Devon. The winners were Gina Smith on Faust (Paxton) and Shannon Dueck on Leoliet (Halifax) and I think it was either Yvonne Barteau or Sue Blinks at Devon. It was for the highest score in the FEI division, but did NOT include the Freestyle in 2001. Not sure of the current year rules for this award. Going into Devon, two Canadians had won the prize … I think the Diamond legacy folks were really hoping an American would win at Devon smile. It’s a great prize, and they are really doing a lot to support dressage.

Liz

Liz Steacie
Porcupine Hill Dressage
Maitland, Ontario

http://www.porcupinehill.com

[poltroon]

Well of course Merry, since LAEC hosts shows from all different disciplines, they’ve got the $6.00 sandwich for all of them. But hey, it’s a big improvement to have the prewrapped, mildly healthy sandwiches as an alternative to the usual, which is bad burgers & fries!

[Merry]

As Cactuskate and I also observed, as we watched Guenter do one-tempi changes on a 10-meter circle, sigh, we hunter folks are careening out of a line toward the arena wall and uttering, "Get a clue, horse, we’re turning left, so change, dammit!"

OH! And what about the spectators themselves, hmmmm? Heaven forbid if a dog barked, a cell phone rang or someone coughed whilst an upper level test was being ridden! One kid next to me dropped an orange and as it rolled precipitously close to the edge of the balcony, he got the “stare of death”. I mean, it wasn’t a grenade, for cryin’ out loud!

Me, I’m trying to coerce my greenies around a course with a weeping baby in a stroller outside my arena and a rabid Jack Russell snarling at my horse through the fence!

“You just keep thinkin’, Butch. That’s what you’re good at.” – The Sundance Kid

[Heidi]

Yes, civilized they may appear Merry, but once they hear of your penchant for peeing in horse trailers (I’m on hold with Anky as I type), they may have to amend their DQ Clique Constitution.

[2Dogs]

could we please put this repartee in COTH? Can we can we. I am here at an unusually mind-numbing day at work laughing myself silly over this. Puleeze, someone clean this up and put into the humor column of COTH. Wait - is there a humor column? I vote for Merry to submit this as an article.
Thank you, thank you

[Hopeful_Hunter]

Bummer…the thought of winning a sparkly sheet and polos was ALMOST enough to make me start thinking of a nice musical freestyle to some classic disco – imagine: Enter at A, Buck down center line, haltandbackup7steps at C…

And I’m QUITE sure my leopard garb will be helpful, not awful. I’m counting on the judge to cringe and squint so much upon seeing it that he/she doesn’t see the, uh, bobbles during the rest of the test :-).

[mwalshe]

Silly Merry you missed the most obvious difference. At a dressage show they give you a “time”, composed of actual numbers, minutes and all ex 11:45. This represents when YOU will ride YOUR horse into the ring give or take about 5-10 minutes.

A h/j time on the other hand is usually composed of words, ex. “afternoon” or “very late evening”. This represents approximatley when your class may or may not start depending on the scheduling conflict the youngers are having with the A/A jumpers up in ring XX, 400 miles away. Oh and they’re all using the same saddle which will necessitate a tack change for every single horse.

Approximately 15 minutes after the last “time” on the big board at a dressage show the show is over. ta-daa! you can all go home.

God, I loved grooming at dressage shows.

[lilblackhorse]

yes, there definitely are some differences, eh? HJ shows do amaze me at the amount of noise and hubbub around, but I have to say that the stupid hurry up and wait thing has me not wanting to ever play THAT game again.

Give me my dressage or event any day thank you-11:22? 3.18? We LOVE it…hell, at least in dressage the classes even run in consecutive order. My brain almost blew up when I went to my first hj show and I had no idea how you knew what class was which…they had big clumps of related classes all going at once, so even though 18 was in there, they would go to 5 next… . I must have been on my poor horse for 1 1/2 hours walking around-finally got so panicked I would miss my class when I was warming up, I stayed right by the gate so the lady could tell me when I went! At my age, I really like knowing I have X amount of time before I go in to a class, so I can time my warmup exactly!

“Perfect practice makes perfect.”

[Rockford]

At the end of the test, do they bark? whoop? whistle? Or is it a more civilized “golf-clap like” applause?

[Hopeful_Hunter]

Well…there’s an off chance that my horse and I MAY be doing a schooling dressage show soon, and I can tell you I’m already confused! Here is a somewhat edited version of my conversation with the show folks this week…

• I have to tell you in advance what I’m going to enter? Uh…well, it depends on the horse, ya know? You DON"T know? You need to know to plan my time? What do you mean you have to give me my time?! What time does the show start and when are the schooling rings open? Ummm…so I have a specific time to ride at? What about the rest of the class? THEY all have times too? Wow…

Now, I’m planning to humiliate our barn DQ by showing in a lovely set of matching leopard print saddle pad, polos (allowed at this show, they say), and gloves. Of course, I’ve just learned the tests are ridden in the indoor barn where there are MIRRORS – anyone know how much of a deduction it is for spooking/bucking in each corner?

[Beezer]

Can you PLEASE promise to get pictures or a video? Not so much of your ride, though I know we would love to see that too, but of the looks on the spectators’ and judge’s faces?

I see trees of green, red roses too. I watch 'em bloom for me and for you. And I think to myself … what a wonderful world. Yes, what a wonderful world." – Louie Armstrong.

[Goodyfourshoes]

edit

[JumperEq]

I once competed in a hunter/jumper show while a dressage show was going on in the same showgrounds. Okay, here’s the thing - the DQs got the nice permanent stalls for the same price as we got the cheapie “semi-permanent” stalls (a.k.a. my quiet mare looked at me like, “You really want me to go in there? HA!”). The DQs had real bathrooms that were actually clean. We, on the other hand, were given one stinken portapottie that was strategically positioned so that it would sit in the sun all day long. And last but definitely not least, their concession stand was WAY nicer than our’s.

We had no choice but to put our horses in those “stalls” but darn we hiked whenever we wanted to go to the bathroom or buy food. Hey, some of us even hung around to watch some tests (we were supportive, dangit…up until we got death stares). More than a few people told me that we better not use up their toilet paper or eat all their food. Yeah…okayyyyy…

.:Erin B #2:.
You cannot stop us, you cannot bring us down,
Never give up, we go on and on.

[jgrass]

Let us now consider the dressage schooling show vs. the local hunter schooling circuit. I run both kinds of shows at my farm. The hunter folks expect food on the grounds, porta-potties, and year end trophies and prizes. The dressage folks are astonished to have access to porta-potties, bring their own lunches and don’t seem to expect anything more than a ribbon if they place. If I provide the dressage folks with the same kind of set-up I do for the hunter shows, the dressage folks are absolutely delighted.

For my part, I compete in dressage. I love having assigned times and being able to plan an outing in a way that doesn’t consume an entire day or weekend. I like it when my coach can be at a show, but I don’t really expect her to come. I certainly can’t get the kind of on course coaching that hunter riders seem to expect.
Nor will my coach get up on my horse to school it at a show.

There is also a lot of homework that I, personally, must do before I can show up at a show: those tests really do need to be memorized even if you can find or use a reader and it isn’t something I can do in a few minutes before I go into the ring. And if you get into doing freestyles: there is a whole pile more work editing music and doing what amounts to choreography.

I also like that in dressage I get a score card for every ride with a score for every movement and comments. I can use this to measure my own progress and to plan what I need to work on. I can go to a show and ride and get something valuable from it even if I don’t place. It is a lot harder for a hunter rider to get this kind of detailed feedback. My impression is that the schooling show dressage rider is a lot less focused on winning.

I also manage hunter shows on my farm and have been involved with various aspects of running dressage shows. There are many common issues of hiring judges and other officials. How you set up the rings and the “physical plant” is somewhat similar, but these two kinds of shows are very different to put on.

In a nutshell: running a dressage show takes a huge amount of secretarial work that goes on for about a month before the show. The day of the show is pretty easy, although there is a frenzy of scoring, and the post-show paperwork doesn’t seem to terribly demanding (especially in comparison to what you did before the show).

Hunter shows are the exact opposite. There is very little paperwork to do in advance, the day of the show is pretty frenzied: people entering, adding classes, dropping classes, etc.
and then there is a huge backside load of paperwork in processing the entry payments and generating lots of reports to the associations counting points and to news outlets.

I guess you can tell, this is a topis that interests me…

[AM1]

At least you won’t have to worry about being eliminated for leaving the ring with all four feet.