Unlimited access >

New dressage tests: what think we of the Harmony score?

Everyone getting 6.5 for harmony sounds as if all the judges are driving in the centre lane of a three lane highway: not too fast, not too slow and safely in the middle.

8 Likes

7 or 8, but previously I’d easily get an 8 on gaits, and between 7 and 8 for the others. Now it’s just the one.

Same here…I don’t like it!

I think that’s the idea, so the marks are less weighed on the collectives and more on each movement?

It seems that the new method of assessment requires less time and thought by the judges, a sort of overall impression of the how the test was ridden rather than a thought process. Just my impression from what I’m reading here. If so, not a great direction for the sport in general I would think. When people put the time and effort into competing, they rightly expect to be judged with the same rigour. Not putting this on individual judges at all, just wondering what was the motivation for the change.

3 Likes

Of course they should be marked down in every movement for tension, AND in the collectives.

Are the judges supposed to imagine what the movement would have looked like if the horse wasn’t bracing/tense?

6 Likes

Yes, I agree with this.

That’s pretty insulting towards judges in general. None of the judges I’ve scribed for has ever tried to take the easy way out when assessing horse/rider combinations.

They have, however, wished they could give better marks to those nice, soft horse/rider pairs who didn’t necessarily have the gaits to do better otherwise.

Here’s Valerie Vizcarrondo Pride’s reasoning behind the Harmony score. ’

Collective Mark: Harmony of Athlete and Horse

As judges, we’ve been marking using just the harmony score for a few seasons now. It’s quite nice, honestly, and I feel it levels the playing field away from subjectivity and bias by asking one simple question of whether or not the horse showed a confident partnership. To score well on this collective mark, you don’t have to have the fanciest horse. With this change, a horse that might not have scored well on the collective mark for gaits or a rider that is not quite as polished still have a chance to earn a high mark here if they can display that their partnership adheres to the scale of training.

5 Likes

I would have simply replaced “submission” wirh harmony. Allows the judge to still reward that concept, while providing more direct feedback with the other collectives. Such as Gaits 6.5 “work to improve lateral tendency in walk”, or underlining “engagement of the hind quarters” in Impulsion, or “needs more forward”, or Rider 6 “quieter hands” or “needs better geometry”. It gave more overall space to invite constructive comments and help riders improve.

@Wilbury_Pie I think you are on to something… I don’t think judges specifically want to rush the end of a test, but there has been an overall trend in the last 20yrs for shorter, faster dressage tests and more rides completed in a day. Tests 20yrs ago were less “crammed” with a little more time between movements, and it was not uncommon for all levels to run in a standard (large) size arena. Of course back then there were typically 250 entries max in an event, not 500, and it was okay for a novice test to take 6 minutes vs 4. Look how short the Olympic test was in Tokyo last year-- and how punishing it could be: with fewer available points, EVERY movement was incredibly important and there was no time to “forget a mistake” and make up for it later. I like dressage to make sense, and “teach the horse something” (like a well-designed xc), not be a series of traps to trip up all but the most incredibly well-prepared (almost robotic) pairs.

8 Likes

I don’t think it’s as much “looking the other way” for small mistakes, as it is thr deduction not making as big a difference in a horse with fabulous gaits.

All else being equal, a well-performed movement on a not great mover may score a 7 or 7.5 while on a fabulous mover it may score an 8 or 9. If there is a small mistake, the not great mover is now down to a 6 or 6.5 while the great mover is still sitting on a 7 or 8.

If it’s a big mistake though, like breaking into canter from a medium trot, or messing up a line of changes, the mark is still going to be a 4, no matter how fancy the horse is.

Actually that’s incorrect. The movement should be marked down for overall quality but not for the tension. The mark for tension (lack of submission) was in the collectives.

The tension is sometimes marked as an extra ding, so a horse doing an obedient accurate test, although not completely supple and submissive would get all 5s and 4s when in reality they should be getting 5s and 6s. It was an issue in judging for many years and how to avoid it. This was one reason the collectives were changed.

2 Likes

So you’re disagreeing, but agreeing. Ok.

1 Like

As much as I (the owner of a tense TB) would prefer otherwise, tension is and should be reflected in the score for each movement. How could it not be? Tension affects so many things, including rhythm, relaxation, and suppleness (the bottom three layers of the training pyramid). If tension causes my horse to lose his walk rhythm, brace his jaw/neck/back, get over-enthusiastic in a canter depart, or even just be less through over the back than he should be—I absolutely think it’s fair to see that in the score for that movement.

Maybe you’re talking about just a lack of elasticity in the horse’s natural movement, vs. tension? If you look at the tests though, the directive for almost every movement contains something along the lines of “quality and regularity of the walk/trot/canter/gaits.” The L program teaches that each score starts with the basics, which includes the quality of the gaits. I personally would like to see gaits (quality, not regularity) play a smaller role in scores in eventing dressage, but that’s not the current system.

12 Likes

You would have to take that up with the powers that be who wrote and designed the tests and how they are scored! That is how the old dressage tests were designed to be scored. I have no wish to debate something I didn’t invent lol . Tension is to be marked down in the collectives, not throughout the movements. Tension has nothing to do with elasticity in the movements, that would be part of the “gaits” score.

The gait score is important too, as is shows freedom over the back and shoulder. Some horses are more natural in this, much like some humans have a better natural ability at certain sports.

What is your source for this? How old is “old”? Dressage scoring did change at some point but the “new” system has been in place for quite a while now, I think since the late 1990s or early 2000s? I’d have to look at my notes from Janet Foy clinics and the L Program to be sure of the time period.

My sources are the directives in the tests and the L program that I attended in 2015ish. I’ve been showing dressage since 1998, up to Grand Prix, and have never heard that tension should only be marked down in the collectives. Nor does it make sense to me that it would be when it affects so much of how the movement is performed.

Also, I realize we’re talking about eventing (and I think you might be in Canada?) but if you look at USEF DR116 it says:

6 Likes

I was wondering if you could be harmoniously BAD. :laughing:

I scored this weekend and saw several 5.5s for it so the answer is yes :rofl:

1 Like

Well - I was just wondering if you and the horse showed a matching level of sh*tness, would you get a 9 score for harmony ?

17 Likes

I’ll let you know, lol!

To me, that’s the very definition of “meeting your horse where (s)he is.” :rofl:

4 Likes