You and me both sister! I literally said WOW! out loud.
I think that’s the source of any perceived disconnect; they don’t teach according to your book.
It killed me throughout the L program to have it drilled into me that there is no impulsion in the walk. Now I totally agree there is no suspension, but if there is no impulsion which in my Newtonian physics book means some movement generated by pulse of energy (think the U.S.S. Enterprise on “impulse power”) there would be no movement at all. I adopted an attitude of “cooperate and graduate” in the discussions, but on the written exam intentionally got it “wrong” and was subsequently dinged on my evaluation. Oh well.
I even discussed this with colleagues at work, real engineers, who to a man (I only asked men) claimed to have never heard the word impulsion but all went immediately to the same Star Trek context as did I!
Believe me, matching comments to scores is a BIG part of the L program and it’s something we were assessed on at each.and.every evaluation.
I really think your disconnect is vocabulary-based; you are using a different one than the judge training program. Have you seen the glossary of judging terms?
Yes. But why then use raw score as a marker for the freestyle or as is headed our way, moving up.
That is my beef. It’s not about the qualifying score being about training if the horse is fancy enough to still score above that magic mark.
To me, properly means to the directives, not cranked in, and none of what has become what the sport internationally seems to be rallying against. In some cases.
I have ridden before many judges, including this one, And I feel like in 99% of the cases I was fairly judged. I have no beef about that.
I’m really enjoying the videos and the judge’s commentary generally, but I have to say, I do find it a little disingenuous to claim that an average-moving horse performing a correct test could be competitive against the horses being used in this symposium. In particular, because the “average-mover” being used as an example to make the point is a apparently a GP horse doing a 2nd level test, which means its gaits are developed substantially beyond what they probably looked like when he was competing 2nd actively.
To put some numbers to it, suppose a test has 30 scored movements (counting the 2x coefficients twice, etc), a 6 mover doing a very accurate correct test is IME still very hard pressed to reach 65%, but lets say that’s what they get. Suppose an 8 mover gets all 7’s (due to adequate but not necessarily outstanding riding and training) and 4’s (due to serious errors in the test). How many 4’s would there have to be to tie the 6-mover’s 65%? Five (a lot).
[100(7(30-x)+4x)/300 = 65 if and only if x=5 – The generalization with n scores instead of 30 is x = n/6.]
Oh yes, not just American bred, but the owner (Craig) rode the dam in Young Horse Championships, then bred the dam (result is Habanero), did ALL the training - it is a really cool story! And Craig is such a nice, down-to-earth guy. I’m hoping to see him in the Olympics some day. On a horse he trains up the level himself:D
If the judge had included “fairly good”, then went on to say “but needs more”, would you have been OK with it? That is how the judges are taught - to provide the competitor with information on what is needed for a higher score. Need more angle can still be a 7 or an 8. It is perfectly in line with the descriptions in the rule book - but it is shorthand necessary so the scribes can keep up. Reality is, the judge would love to say - that shoulder in flowed pretty nicely, the horse remained uphill, the horse was steady in the contact, the trot remained nicely energetic, the horse was swinging in the back, but if you really want an 8 or a 9, you need a bit more angle and bend, so it is fairly good, but it isn’t yet good or very good. But - here’s reality, I’m the scribe, and I’m going to freak out with the judge at this point, because we are now 3 movements later, and I’m still trying to fit all of that into the box for the Shoulder In, and the horse has already done a medium trot and is starting the next shoulder in. That is why they have to go to shorthand.
No, I’m sorry, I can’t let this go. At no point did I see a horse “cranked in.” That’s a very unfair characterization.
Like it or not, some young horses, especially those that offer a lot of hock action and movement from behind, will drop a little behind the vertical from time to time. You can chase them forward out of it, get them over tempo and hollow and unhappy in the process, or you can let them develop a more uphill balance and strength in their own time. It’s not worth getting worked up about in the overall scheme of things.
Look at the bigger picture. This is not the “BTV” as a welfare issue.
Max Gahwyler wrote about this exact same idea in Dressage & CT Magazine back in the 1990’s…when this whole gaits emphasis started.
He showed the same results as strangewings…that a poorly ridden but extravagant moving horse would win over a correctly ridden horse with less movement if the emphasis was on gaits.
Perhaps folks with old Dressage & CT mags may have the article.
I come from a long career in process improvement. The philosophy that drives that profession is the fundamental premise that perfection is not attainable and some level of improvement is always possible.
It is the role of the practitioners to therefore take the opportunity to challenge the status quo to ask how the process (any process) can be improved.
I don’t believe the USDF has reached the nirvana of perfection yet.
Thanks, very helpful…this is why I asked my question.
I scribed for Michael Handler (Hans Handler’s son). He was a scoring machine and would give the Comment->Score, and was internally consistent.
But in my OPINION (operative word)… I also don’t think that a competition is the place to get feedback on how to improve your riding. A competition is a test…not a lesson.
If a rider wants a lesson on how to improve their test riding craft, then that is a lesson and should be done outside of a competition. That is what “Fix a Test” rides are for. Or schedule to take a lesson from a judge or arrange a test riding clinic.
Lol. There is no requirement for you to agree with me, nor did I say that it is a welfare issue here. That is your characterization of my words.
i was responding to someone else’s question about what I mean by properly in a 6.5 gaits horse. Go back and read it and stop looking for reasons to be second hand offended.
Yes, the dam is Caliente. And even with that one, a cool story - DG Bar didn’t think she was fancy enough… Craig is just such an awesome rider, she turned out to be fancy enough… Also, didn’t go for the trendy young stallion of the year, he went from tried and true, Idocus as the sire…
Yes, I agree, it is too bad - he is the kind of rider we should be looking at! My GMO helps fund our rider travels - because we are so far away from everything (USDF/USEF do everything on the East Coast), we all pay extra for every single show we enter - to help fund travel for our top riders… But it is nothing like the USEF grants.
And Gary Rockwell:lol: Actually, I’ve scribed for a few who use long words and provide a lot of info… I would agree, Jeff uses a lot of long words - and sometimes words that people aren’t so familiar with!
But it isn’t a lesson - they are not being told HOW to achieve “more”, they are simply being informed what would be needed for a better score. Just as a rider with a lower score is being told why there score is lower. If a judge said “you need to use your inside leg to create more bend”, that would be teaching. But to simply say “more bend needed” is informing the rider why the score wasn’t higher. In the perfect world, there would be time to comment on the good and the areas that need improvement, but that isn’t always realistic. So telling someone it is overall fairly good, but needs more (whatever) is abbreviated to the “needs more whatever”, with the 7 telling the rider it is overall fairly good.
As you stated I come from a long career in process improvement. The philosophy that drives that profession is the fundamental premise that perfection is not attainable and some level of improvement is always possible, and I think we would all agree with - things can always be better. And that is what the judge is saying here - it is fairly good, but with a bit of tweaking, it could be good, or very good.
That is also a huge thing emphasized in the L Program - and sometimes GOOD trainers struggle in the program because they want to give training tips. You state what you see at that moment, and what is needed to make it better, or what makes it outstanding. Not HOW to do it. A fine line, what is needed versus how to achieve it.
