New tests, symposium, curious as to your thoughts.

[MysticOakRanch]

@lorilu

BTW it was an American-bred horse - Habanero CWS 6YO Horse of the Year.

I also saw a 9 walk.

Once you see them, you know.

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

[MysticOakRanch]

@pluvinel

I am not bothered by the 7’s. I am bothered by the inconsistency of what is in the rulebook for score descriptors say, and the judge’s comments.

In my book, if a judge wants “more”…as in “Could be more…xxxx” that movement is only “Satisfactory.” It does not not come up to the standards of “Good.”

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.

[atr]

@right horse at the right time

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.

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.

[alibi_18]

@MysticOakRanch

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.

Unless you scribe for Lilo, then you have to write down everything. Everything.

Love her. My fingers, not so much.

[pluvinel]

@anon55755751

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.]

Exactly.

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.

[pluvinel]

@lorilu

…
You are SO unhappy with SO much of what USDF does. You are unhappy with the very foundation of what they do - apparently they took a turn somewhere away from what you think dressage in America should look like. It appears that turn was made LONG ago - and frankly I doubt there is any going back and redirecting. WHy don’t you look towards the Baroque Equestrian Games folks - look it up. Might be more to your liking.

I am sorry that you feel this way.

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.

[pluvinel]

@MysticOakRanch

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. …

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.

[Manni01]

@pluvinel

I am sorry that you feel this way.

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.

Thank you for this post!

[right_horse_at_the_right_time]

@atr

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.

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.

[atlatl]

@alibi_18

Unless you scribe for Lilo, then you have to write down everything. Everything.

Love her. My fingers, not so much.

Sounds like scribing for Jeff Moore; few words but each one had multiple syllables, e.g. unharmoniously. And he didn’t like abbreviations.

[atlatl]

@MysticOakRanch

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

Too bad he’s not a U.S. citizen, then he’d be eligible for USEF training grants etc. Isn’t the dam Caliente DG from DG Bar?

[MysticOakRanch]

@atlatl

Too bad he’s not a U.S. citizen, then he’d be eligible for USEF training grants etc. Isn’t the dam Caliente DG from DG Bar?

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.

[MysticOakRanch]

@atlatl

Sounds like scribing for Jeff Moore; few words but each one had multiple syllables, e.g. unharmoniously. And he didn’t like abbreviations.

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!

[MysticOakRanch]

@pluvinel

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.

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.

@pluvinel

I don’t believe the USDF has reached the nirvana of perfection yet.

I totally agree…

[Magicboy]

Gary Rockwell is also very funny. Scribing for him requires great face control to avoid laughing. I don’t suggest he’s mean-not at all— just clever and smart I think he’s a terrific judge

[Silverbridge]

I haven’t been able to watch much of very many of the tests yet, but from the Youtube videos so far, I’ve seen many very nice horses and one or two that look to be exceptional movers.

Whether or not all posters are critiquing the same, specific pairs, I do think it’s worth noting the the “8-mover” label is much more common terminology in terms of discussion than it exists in actuality.

That is, IF you apply the term only to a horse whose tests actually come back, regularly and at all the levels, with an 8 in the gaits collectives box. Now if you call any horse that seems to really move with floating gaits and uphill balance an “8-mover” then yes I agree we are all often competing against that kind of horse, and on our best days some of us are riding them.

But the horse who consistently earns an 8 on gaits from most judges is typically the type that appears at YH Championships and in the Young Horse tests at CDIs. When older, they are in the CDIs at the small tour and large tour and/or making national teams. There looked to be a couple in that category in this video set. Most of them in the category coming up the levels, no matter what part of the country, are ridden by pros, and by a huge percentage.

There are two horses in our training group in that category and it’s always an education to get a look at their score sheets at shows. Particularly when they make bobbles and you see a couple of 4s mixed in with the very high scores. You can see how they end up where they do. I’m lucky to be around them and know the owners and trainer well enough to get a peek at their results, purely for educational purposes.

Mostly, we amateurs do not compete against “8 movers” in the technical sense.

[anon55755751]

Let me start by saying that this response is directed towards the larger discussion we’re having here - I’m not trying to take sides against you or anything. I understand what you’re saying about the bigger picture, as well as the earlier posts others (don’t recall who exactly now, and am not going back pages to check) have made about “focusing on the negative” making scores too low. I’ve ridden for the L program and seen it happen in real time!

@atr

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.
.

The part of this post I want to pull out specifically is the “let them develop a more uphill balance and strength in their own time” part. I totally agree that BTV as shown in some of these tests is a strength/self-carriage issue (or maybe a tension issue).

The question I have is this: If a horse is demonstrating throughout a test that it does not have the strength to perform the test without going btv much of the time (I know you said occasionally btv - I am changing the scope of the issue in order to ask a new question, not trying to misrepresent your statement), does that not imply that the horse simply is not prepared for that level? It does seem to me to get brushed away as “just a minor issue” because the big picture is promising, the horse has a natural uphill tendency, etc. It seems to get taken for granted that given time, the horse will develop the requisite strength. They will get dinged for it in scoring on that day, sure, but not enough to imply that maybe the trainer should slow down and work on developing strength/balance before coming back to try that level again.

A less talented horse does not receive any such leeway. A horse built downhill may be more on the forehand at a given level than a naturally uphill horse because it takes longer for that type of horse to develop the strength to lift his forehand, even if the training is correct and otherwise appropriate to the level of the test. Different manifestation of a “strength” issue, but still a strength/balance/development issue. In the case of a downhill horse, it is never brushed off as “just a strength issue”. It is always called out as “insufficient self-carriage for this level” or “needs more uphill balance” or similar. I mean, I get it. I get that this horse is also not satisfying the “big picture”, but the way things are scored now (the gaits-first perspective), “big picture” is skewed very heavily towards natural talent and riding/training that at worst does not interfere with that talent. The people with 6 movers are told on the other hand, well, if you just were a better rider/trainer, you’d be able to develop better gaits - that’s what good dressage does, after all. While that’s true, there’s a limit to which it is true - and especially as Silverbridge points out: a horse that moves an 8 on its best day will not get an 8 every day!

[right_horse_at_the_right_time]

@anon55755751

Let me start by saying that this response is directed towards the larger discussion we’re having here - I’m not trying to take sides against you or anything. I understand what you’re saying about the bigger picture, as well as the earlier posts others (don’t recall who exactly now, and am not going back pages to check) have made about “focusing on the negative” making scores too low. I’ve ridden for the L program and seen it happen in real time!

The part of this post I want to pull out specifically is the “let them develop a more uphill balance and strength in their own time” part. I totally agree that BTV as shown in some of these tests is a strength/self-carriage issue (or maybe a tension issue).

The question I have is this: If a horse is demonstrating throughout a test that it does not have the strength to perform the test without going btv much of the time (I know you said occasionally btv - I am changing the scope of the issue in order to ask a new question, not trying to misrepresent your statement), does that not imply that the horse simply is not prepared for that level? It does seem to me to get brushed away as “just a minor issue” because the big picture is promising, the horse has a natural uphill tendency, etc. It seems to get taken for granted that given time, the horse will develop the requisite strength. They will get dinged for it in scoring on that day, sure, but not enough to imply that maybe the trainer should slow down and work on developing strength/balance before coming back to try that level again.

A less talented horse does not receive any such leeway. A horse built downhill may be more on the forehand at a given level than a naturally uphill horse because it takes longer for that type of horse to develop the strength to lift his forehand, even if the training is correct and otherwise appropriate to the level of the test. Different manifestation of a “strength” issue, but still a strength/balance/development issue. In the case of a downhill horse, it is never brushed off as “just a strength issue”. It is always called out as “insufficient self-carriage for this level” or “needs more uphill balance” or similar. I mean, I get it. I get that this horse is also not satisfying the “big picture”, but the way things are scored now (the gaits-first perspective), “big picture” is skewed very heavily towards natural talent and riding/training that at worst does not interfere with that talent. The people with 6 movers are told on the other hand, well, if you just were a better rider/trainer, you’d be able to develop better gaits - that’s what good dressage does, after all. While that’s true, there’s a limit to which it is true - and especially as Silverbridge points out: a horse that moves an 8 on its best day will not get an 8 every day!

Once again, exactly this.

[anon55755751]

@alibi_18

Unless you scribe for Lilo, then you have to write down everything. Everything.

Love her. My fingers, not so much.

I scribed for a judge circa 2000, forget who exactly, who had me fill up every box, and as the test ended and I was faithfully scribing her comments for the last few moves, she was literally writing over top of me to add comments earlier in the test. Thankfully I had a few seasons of experience as a scribe by then and was trained early on by a judge who was very good with new scribes! But it was a challenging day to keep up and I probably had to answer a lot of competitor questions about what my necessary but unconventional shorthand that day meant!

[BigMama1]

@pluvinel

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.

I will disagree with your opinion. My opinion is that the comments are what set dressage apart from other subjectively scored sports. We could switch to a score only format like gymnastics or diving or figure skating, but why would we want to? The comments give us direction in terms of what was lacking or where to improve for a higher score. That can be beneficial information either to put the judge’s scores in context or to improve your next test.