Placings in lower level horse trials

[Arzny]

H/J shows base everything off of your trainer. Stalls/hay/bedding are all ordered by the trainer and then split out onto everyone’s bill by said trainer. I once broke a show manager’s brain by asking to be stabled with someone instead of having our trainer order stalls.
Communication from the show is generally only to the trainer.
Ultimately, it’s just very noticeable if you are amateur and alone. There’s no culture of allowing people to share warm up fences / stable next to their friends / share a hose / etc.

ETA: most shows assume you are a no show if you don’t show up until Friday afternoon to show on the weekend. The general culture of horse showing is that you send horsey on Monday or Tuesday with the trainer, and then the amateur client comes and horse shows Friday/Sat/Sun, after the trainer has done the horse in a few classes during the week.

[Willesdon]

So a pro rider on a totally green five year old in a lowly section is unfair to a highly experienced amateur on a 5* horse that has stepped down due to age?

[Janet]

@Xanthoria

There was an amateur division! And these people (or the organizers) still chose to put a bunch of pros in Rider Vs Open

The breakdown at T was:
Jr Training Rider: 21 competitors
Sr Training Rider: 22
Training Amateur: 21
Open Training: 14 <- plenty of room for the pros here!

Perhaps the people who were eligible for both “Rider” and “Amateur” put “Rider” as their first choice because they didn’t care about competing against Rider-eligible Pros.
I do that.

[foggythistle]

I haven’t read the whole thread, but if you have different (dressage) judges judging the same level, you could have very different outcomes. Different judges see different things, judge slightly differently, etc, and I would want to be placed with others who had the same subjective judge.

[leighbo009]

@Arzny

I once broke a show manager’s brain by asking to be stabled with someone instead of having our trainer order stalls.
Communication from the show is generally only to the trainer.

I must say, as an eventer who went to a schooling hunter jumper show, this blew my mind.

I emailed for stalls like they asked, asking to be with 1 other who I would be traveling with (no trainer for us, doing it like we do eventing shows). The show office assumed I was with a trainer (that I had no affiliation with, besides attending clinics she hosted with an out of town clinicition) and didn’t even have a stall for my friend.

Thankfully we where able to get it sorted & the stalls wheren’t full so me and my friend were able to stall together, but our shavings & everything else was difficult to find.

But this was a major wake up call for us (since we expected it to be like eventing shows) and TBH, we haven’t attended another one since it didn’t seem welcoming to us who where not affiliated with a trainer.

[Carried_Away]

If AEC’s aren’t the goal (although to me trying to qualify is a goal in itself even if I can’t attend), it’s worth noting that there are separate year-end amateur or YR points assigned after weeding out the pros in the division. There are actually quite a few splits of the leaderboard by level (way more than there used to be!): https://useventing.com/events-competitions/awards/leaderboard

[OverandOnward]

Everything mentioned about the h/j show lifestyle … I get it, have seen it in action … and this is a huge reason I do not show h/j. Along with all of the other reasons. Too autonomous by nature. Want to control my own space.

But there are people who love that way of showing, more power to 'em.

The warm-up ring – I went to watch a nearby long-standing famous h/j show for a couple of hours recently. I always think that the most interesting part of any show is the warm-up ring! Yes, I did notice that the trainers took charge of individual jumps. A rider with no trainer could probably work in over the jumps, if they were a bit pushy. But the remarks about how it ‘really’ works definitely explain a lot.

So interesting that in eventing, it can vary by venue and fixture how much of a factor are trainers in the warm-up ring. Where I am there are riders with and without a trainer.

I could be either, with or without a trainer. Once as a no-trainer rider in warm-up I was working in over a jump where a trainer had parked himself. I wondered why, as I came over, I could hear him talking quietly to no one, with little remarks such as ‘carry more pace’. I finally figured out – I think he was talking to me!

[Highflyer1]

Lol he probably had a rider with a headset.

[OverandOnward]

Didn’t see one, but maybe so. They were useful remarks, even if they weren’t for me.

[ACMEeventing]

@Janet

USEF Eventing rules Appendix 3 1.4 and 1.5

1.4 For the purposes of this rule, in differentiating eligibility for Horse and Rider sections, FEI divisions are considered to be one level higher than the equivalent National division, e.g. FEI Two Star is one level higher than a Preliminary Horse Trial. A rider who has completed an event at the Advanced Level is not eligible to compete as an Intermediate rider.
1.5 RIDER ® - Open to competitors who have not completed an event above the next highest level in the 5 years preceding the date of the competition, e.g. a Novice Rider may have completed an event at Training level, but not Modified or Preliminary level or higher in the 5 years preceding the date of the competition; a Training Rider may have completed an event at Modified or Preliminary level, but not Intermediate level or higher in the 5 years preceding the date of the competition.

Why is it that a Novice Rider can’t have competed at Modified, but a Training rider may have competed at Preliminary. Now that Modified is a recognized division doesn’t it count as a level up from Training?

With regard to the FEI divisions being considered one level higher, does that also disqualify someone from entering a rider division if they have competed (with or without completion, maybe a TE on XC or E in Stadium, etc)?

I don’t have a dog in the fight but I am definitely for a level playing field as much as possible. Too may times I see athletes in the Rider division that, on paper, would seem to be disqualified from that division.

[Janet]

@ACMEeventing

Why is it that a Novice Rider can’t have competed at Modified, but a Training rider may have competed at Preliminary. Now that Modified is a recognized division doesn’t it count as a level up from Training?

I don’t know, but it probably has to do with the fact that many events run Training and Prelim but do not run Modified.

@ACMEeventing

With regard to the FEI divisions being considered one level higher, does that also disqualify someone from entering a rider division if they have competed (with or without completion, maybe a TE on XC or E in Stadium, etc)?

If you read the rule carefully, you will see it only refers to “completion”. So if you “competed” at a higher level, but didn’t finish with a numerical score, it doesn’t affect your “Rider” status.

[ACMEeventing]

Thanks Janet. Interesting

[Rnichols]

Hmm I think that not all events offering Modified is not a good enough rationale. It’s still a USEA recognized level. If you’ve competed prelim, that is still two levels above training and therefore you should not be eligible for training rider. I hope this gets some clarification next year, because modified has been a level for at least 5 years now?