This would be a very interesting and perhaps best way to divide the competitors. An “open” division at each height where you can have all the folks who have won/accumulated x points at that level and the “restricted” division at each height for those who have never won at that level or have fewer than x accumulated points at that level/height. Get rid of pro/amateur entirely and maybe add an even more “elite” division at the big shows only open to those riders who have accumulated a large number of wins/points. This would allow riders with not as fancy horses to compete against similar animals, less experienced riders to compete against similar riders, etc. So three divisions at 2’6–elite, open and restricted and so on up the height scale.
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Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I was talking about dressage, not hunters.
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Just height. There is no way to create a completely level playing field.
There is always going to be somebody with more money, a nicer horse, a better trainer, more time, etc. Get out there and just put in a good round and let the cards fall where they may and don’t worry about the $2 ribbons.
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With that logic, why separate juniors from adults? Ponies from horses?
People in all sports want to compete against their peers. Pro/Am is a distinction made in lots of different sports. People who make their living doing [this thing] vs people who do it as a hobby or recreation. I think the distinction is important enough to separate it in competition. And there’s nothing stopping an amateur from entering the pro divisions, why aren’t they?
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At a five-day show, would you run one marathon division, or do two divisions–one during the week and one Friday to Sunday. Or three, of two days each.
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Keep Jrs/ Adults separate.
I’m just talking about the Pro vs Amateur division.
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Yes, do weekday and weekend classes to accommodate people’s different schedules.
Understatement.
If the ingate person is not really on top of things, or if the exhibitors are a little casual about giving the ingate person correct information to relay to the judge about which classes they’ve entered and which class they’re doing, it turns into a giant kerfuffle.
And the judge is the one who gets blamed when the awards turn out wrong as a result.
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Ranking isn’t the same as a score.
Suzie pinned first, Abby pinned second, and Joe pinned third. How close was each to a perfect 100? What did they do wrong to lose points? We don’t know and neither do they. Maybe they were the best of the worst and in another group would have been at the bottom of the pack. Maybe all three were amazing and a point or less separated them we have no idea.
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OK, I don’t think we’re communicating well. Dressage judges give scores with ranking in mind. By the way, 10 doesn’t mean perfect, it means excellent.
I’m really not understanding the point you’re trying to make. I am genuinely trying but I don’t understand.
The test stays the same. If I got a 7 on a movement and next time I got an 8 I know I improved. That’s why in dressage you’re always really riding against yourself. You can go score by score seeing if your test was better or worse. And it’s your own average that counts for year end awards, not points based on rankings.
In hunters if I got a blue ribbon I have no idea what I did wrong or right. If next show I get a red ribbon it doesn’t mean I rode worse than my last show. It just means someone else was better. You can’t ride against yourself because you don’t get a consistent score over the same course that is unchanging all season long.
Dressage judges don’t score with rankings in mind. They score each movement individually and it then gets added up to a final score. They aren’t ranking at all. The scores ultimately get compared but if the judge likes you better you don’t get a 8 on a movement just because the judge wants to rank you better than someone else. That’s not how dressage scoring works.
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I think you are both actually saying the same things. To implement dressage type class structure/divisions, you’d then need to implement numerical scoring for hunters (which some judges do anyway even if the score is not announced) and then have points or year end calculations be based on the score not X points for a blue ribbon with N people in the class at AA rating. Which would mean some more standardizations in place for scoring rounds than currently exists in the hunters. We have standard numbers for certain mistakes (plus or minus a few), but the rest not so much. And, not everyone is doing the same course of jumps every time. How can you rank A/O hunter handy at show A against a totally different course at show B? In dressage, everyone ranked against each other is riding the exact same test with set guidelines for what each movement is about and the purpose of the level.
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Okay I admit I stopped reading pretty far up because it was repetitive.
My proposal is we have poor people divisions and rich people divisions, determined by how much non-horsey work they have to do to support the horse thing.
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In theory. What I found in practice was that there were higher and lower scoring judges. And that scores were sometimes more generous at smaller shows. But, if you look at your scores for a given movement, or type of movement, over time you should definitely see trends.
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Agree but the same is true for anything subjective. What I’m saying is that a judge doesn’t see you ride and see me ride and decide they want you to win and so score you an 8 for a movement where in their own scale, they’d score that a 7. Each rider is scored against the test, not as compared to each other.
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Yes, they do. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. And they are taught that it’s important to rank correctly. The collective marks can be very useful for that.
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Not ranking riders against each other. There is no where on the dressage ballot for adding extra points on to make sure rider A beats rider b. Yes there are elements in which the rider is scored as part of the overall score but there’s no place on the ballot to add some extra points because you had both rider a and b identical on movement scores all throughout but you want to make sure rider a beats rider b. Can you find any source directing judges to score that way?
It’s not even practical where the score sheets may be handed in hours
apart for riders at the same level and there’s no way to go back and change earlier marks. A lot of time dressage divisions are essentially open cards a
I’d really like to see any source directing dressage judges to see a rider, decide they want that rider to “win” the division, and add underserved points for movements into the ballot to ensure that happens. Please show me the source and I will happily admit to being wrong but the ballot is expressly designed to score each movement individually against the ideal… not to create a ranking of riders as compared to each other that day.
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But in most other sports, competing as a pro correlates with ability, and there’s a qualification process. In our sport, according to the rulebook, the only thing that makes you a pro is accepting remuneration for riding, showing, training, acting as an agent in a horse sale, etc. Usually your average pro has a better skillset than your average ammy… but there are pros who have never jumped a 3’ course and amateurs who have jumped in Nation’s Cups.
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Small correction here: rated hunters DO get scores in the regular division classes. I did the 3’ A/As at my local A show last month and absolutely got scores.
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Heritage has a Winter home program that doesn’t head South. It can be done! Would be nice to have the option to leave people at home in capable hands. I’ve shown at WEF and quite frankly thought it was absurd that they offer walk/trot classes. But what do I know.
