I’ve seen judges use the O/F order for the hack. I’ve been given a hack win I didn’t necessarily deserve because I’d won both O/F classes but I’ve also gotten a low ribbon with a horse that definitely should have won. Is there a reason why it’s done? Is there a good reason or bad reason? I feel robbed when my lovely mover doesn’t get the ribbon he deverves because I stink at finding eight fences. Do they even watch the hack? Is that fair?
I havent found this to be the case. My daughter has a very fancy pony. Jumps a 10 every time and is hard to beat even at big so cal shows. But she usually pins bottom of the class in the hack because she has the old school daisy cutter movement (unless we get a rare judge who likes it). You never know what the judges see and are looking for. And yes, I think they watch the hack. I also think that sometimes the best jumpers are not the best movers on the flat.
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While there may be the occasional favoritism or kowtowing to certain connections, I don’t think this is generally the case. Judges may have preferences, and reward or penalize accordingly, but based on what I’ve seen overall I wouldn’t say judging tends to be unfair.
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I think judges are more likely to pay attention to any given horse in the U/S if they like them O/F. If the class is huge, those are the ones that might stand out to them and the ones they will pin, unless that horse really isn’t a great mover and there are others in the hack that are outstanding. Or some judges really like a certain way of going over others. Or they know how the points are adding up and the hack is used to award “extra” points to whomever they would like to be champion/reserve. If a bunch of horses are hack winners, well, there can only be 1 in first, so that’s up to judge’s preference.
If you feel like your horse is being robbed, maybe make a note of that judge(s) and don’t show under them. Does your trainer agree with you or have pointers on how to make your horse stand out more in the hack or hack better? As for winning when you didn’t deserve it, maybe to the judge your horse went the best U/S – could be they just really liked your horse, or maybe the better mover(s) did something, like was very tense or head tossing or spooky or picked up wrong lead or fell out of the canter.
I’m not sure if you’re talking about the same horse here, who is both a hack winner and not – but you can see how you have your preferences for movement…so do judges. I will say if the division is big enough (ie, I didn’t need to fill the class), I have elected not to do the U/S if I wasn’t great O/F, with horses that didn’t move beautifully (or if I had multiple horses, only hacked the one that moved the best or up for champion).
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I don’t think I’ve ever encountered that. At A shows?
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What do you mean by “use the O/F order for the hack”? Like the exact same pinnings?
My guess is that this is your unconscious bias. You are attributing one reason to these placings for which there could be many! There is an art to U/S, riding out of the crowd, picking up correct leads, making the horse appear pleasant to ride, etc. While movement is a big factor, there are many.
I can speak anecdotally that in my A show experience, I have at times rode the hack winner and couldn’t see a distance over fences. I pinned accordingly. I also rode a knee-y horse well to 8 jumps and placed reasonably due to the horse’s serviceable jumping style. I did not get a piece of the U/S though.
Goes both ways.
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My trainer’s friend was in a baby green division with his fancy mare. Really nice rounds, everyone thought he would win.
So after the 2 overfence round, he went back in for the hack. While walking around, he told my trainer he felt his mare felt off and so he went out of the ring right before it started.
He won the hack.
He wasn’t even there…
This was a National show.
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Never noticed it at all. I’ve had ones do really well in the u/s and not in the o/f and more often than that, really well in o/f and not as well in the u/s. And those are A and AA shows.
Me neither. The most I have seen is if you have one dominant horse o/f, he might get a little more love (as in something pastel instead of not placing) if he was an above average mover but clearly not the winner. And usually that example has a pretty solid canter, but maybe not a world beater of a trot, so it is a totally defensible placing.
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lots of judges do favor the ones they like better o/f. i’ve been on the good and the bad end of this style of judging.
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This happened to us a few weekends ago at an A show. Turns out another number was similar to ours and was most likely an error. It happens, not often but it does. (same as the time I MISSED a JUMP - as in cantered by a single b/c I forgot the course-and got a 3rd, but I said something about it.)
Well i know of someone who was 7th in a large two round JR/AO classic (over 25 entries), who did not even do the second round (first round score was below the cut off). Mistakes on judges cards do happen!
We have been showing for years in the rated ponies, children’s and now juniors, and usually the hack winner is the hack winner, hands down. Hacks are so subjective though, I don’t know that you can complain about not being pinned when its usually inconsistent due to different judging preferences. Our junior hunter is not everyone’s cup of tea, and wears heavy steel shoes, but moves well enough and is beautiful so he usually gets a good hack prize. He has won the hack at a large AA rated show and he has been 5th out of 5 at a small A show against basically the same horses. That said, I have not seen a preference to use those horses who did well over fences. In fact our children’s horse was not usually the class winner over jumps but often won the hacks without even obtaining a single primary color ribbon over jumps. Conversely, at that small 5 horse division where our horse was last in the hack, we would have had a tri-color if we had pinned higher in the hack and by the way, the hack winner did nothing over jumps (was last in every class), so that was a bummer!
That said I have heard from judges that they write a horses number down from the over fences portion that they like trotting in and focus on them for the hack. If a horse is terrible over fences, I could see a judge not wanting to reward it (meaning bucking, stopping, running away etc).
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I think there are also times where the horse that is a rockstar in the over fences classes is equally nice in the under saddle. Sure there are times when it also feels like a judge may favor a horse, and do I think that a horse that has won all of the o/f will be in a good spot to get noticed coming into the under saddle, absolutely but do I think that they are a guaranteed win, no…
The thing with hunters is that you just have to embrace that it is going to have an aspect of the judge’s personal taste. Yes there are base requirements but beyond that when it comes to an under saddle I would expect in a quality field that most of the horses are going to be going around with a lovely soft way of going and put together lovely rides, from there it is going to be what the judge likes: do they like the old school daisy cutter, or do they prefer the lofty big warmblood gaits etc.
My gelding tends to get a pretty good piece of the hack, at our last show we still placed but not as high as normal. We had also had a couple bobbles (rider error, not horse’s fault) in the O/F leading up to the hack so hadn’t placed as well in the first O/F class. Did I blame the placing on preconceived placings from the O/F, no instead I looked at the hack winners with this judge and acknowledged that they were a very different type than my guy, also that from what I had seen of them while being in the same ring for the U/S class the horses had gone brilliantly. We also finished off the division with two O/F placings that were very fair based on the rounds we had put in.
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I know, from hearing it from judges I know, that in a large class a judge is going to give some preference to the horses that pin over fences as a starting point. The judge also gets to see them all trot in when doing O/F so a smart judge will make some notes then (and a smart rider will take advantage of that brief time that they have the judge’s undivided attention!). In a big hack class you have to separate them out somehow. I always wonder, when I’m watching a massive U/S class, how in the world they do it, when all the horses are nice. You might have a couple that blow a lead or that you can discard because they don’t move the greatest, but the majority are going to be really close. I don’t blame judges at all for favouring O/F horses in that type of situation. Now, if a horse performed poorly or just so-so over fences and is clearly a world-beater on the flat, a judge SHOULD take notice of that and pin accordingly, or they are not doing their job. But in a class where all the horses are fairly similar and no one makes any big mistakes? That is down to judge’s preference and if they prefer to pin their O/F horses, so be it.
My mare was a lovely mover but due to rider error/nerves/not the best over fences, we often would have pastel over fences ribbons (or no O/F ribbons) but win or place second in the hack. Happened all the time.
While I think most of us have some type of story of a horse not even in the hack winning it because they did well over fences, I do think that is the exception, not the rule.
Ours wasn’t an error, it wasn’t a mistake.
The judge pinned the rider who wasn’t there because his mare is just beautiful overall.
He surely would have won… had he really been there.
I was really weird.
Only 7 or 8 in the class, all Pro riders. The judge had her winning list ready before it was even started… They went around a few times and voilà.
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For the record, if you are in the ring and decide to leave the class, proper horse show etiquette is to either walk over to the judge and let them know you are retiring, or at least signal to them when you know they are looking at you and let them know you are leaving. That is the proper thing to do.
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I think sometimes when all things being equal, a judge may use a horse that placed in an O/F class over a horse that didn’t in an under saddle class - more as a means of a tie-breaker. In a large hack, if a horse had issues in the OF, unless it’s hands down hack winner it might not draw the judge’s attention too much
I’m kind of LOLing over the comments about the judge noting the good movers when they trot before commencing their over fences rounds as I’ve owned more than one horse that I was instructed to take directly from the walk to the canter in the over fences rounds. But I generally didn’t put those horses in the hack…
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The class wasn’t started when he left and the rider probably advised the ingate…
The point is, his number got first, he wasn’t there.
Show etiquette for judges is to pin riders that are the best in the class.
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I have definitely found this NOT to be true in my case; I show on a big local circuit here in Maryland; My guy is super cute O/F and we usually get good ribbons, but we are consistently very low placed, or LAST in the hack. I always joke about his potential sale ad (which will never happen, but still) “always gets a piece of the hack…” Uh, yes, the LAST piece! LOL
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