COTH has a new article about the rule changes that are proposed.
I am confused by this comment, mainly the part I have bolded.
I can not think of how anything I think that would make a Tennessee Walking horse go well for showing working for what one would want on their warmblood.
Does anyone know what they are talking about?
Another question, is not having a number this much of a problem?
My best guess without knowing the intent of the proposer of the rule change or what they have seen at dressage shows might be this part of the rule language (italics mine):
“The use of a weighted shoe, pad, wedge, in conjunction with a hoof band or other device or material (commonly referred to as a performance package) placed on, inserted in, or attached to any limb of a Tennessee Walking Horse, a Racking Horse, or Spotted Saddle Horse(each a breed not recognized by the Federation) or any other horse breed constructed to artificially alter the gait of such a horse, and which are not protective or therapeutic in nature, at a Federation Licensed Competition is prohibited.”
Maybe they feel they have seen some kind of weighted shoe to achieve extravagant gaits?
As to the back numbers on jumpers, it was proposed by the USEF Jumper committee so I suppose there must have been some number of problems that prompted the proposal. I can see the lack of back numbers being a complaint from judges/scorers/ingate personnel, particularly if one rider has multiple horses in a class.
I was once asked by someone if they could borrow my number and pay me back for the class so they could use it to enter a class that their horse wasn’t eligible for (to which I said NOPE). I don’t know if that’s the sort of behaviour that this proposal is targeting, but playing around with numbers definitely happens sometimes.
This is the part I do not get. I did not think they want knee action in dressage and I guess I am showing my clueless side but I can not see how weighted shoes help produce what they want in dressage.
There has been a trend towards dressage horses with high front end action, less for the knees than the toe point before the hoof hits the ground to make the horse appear more uphill, especially in the extended trot. I’m not a dressage or shoeing expert, but there’s been some debate about this extreme front end action and how it sometimes falsely exaggerates the horse’s gaits when they are not truly coming through from the hind end. But I’m still just guessing as to what the proposer believes they have seen in the dressage world in terms of shoeing.
Wow. I’ve never heard of that one. And it seems like a ridiculous idea, since obviously the points and prize money would go to the horse listed for that number.
I will say that at a big horse show with 200 trips in the ring each day, somebody who is casual about the numbers is just a bigger headache than they need. So I can understand wanting to have a rule in place to give the ingate person and the judge a little more leeway to make those people pay closer attention. Even if they are just disorganized or sloppy rather than nefarious, it still needs to be corrected.
I think in this case, they wanted to school the horse to prepare for something else, so they were attempting to get more time in the ring as schooling for a class or division later in the week rather than attempting to get points or money in the class they wanted my number for.
Honestly, I didn’t ask questions because it made me immediately uncomfortable and I said no.
There are rumors that people in dressage and jumpers use modified hoof wear to influence gaits behind the scenes. I don’t know if they show in it or just train.
I attended an Arab show here that was EC rated and there were horses showing in saddle seat and hunt seat with weighted shoes and long hooves.
I would imagine not so functional for anythung with jumps but there the bad practice might be poling.
And that makes sense (weighted shoes for Arabian saddle seat and Hunt seat) because they want a certain amount of knee action and adding weight to the shoes will give that . (Not saying I agree with this, simply saying weight = knee action makes sense.)
I was hoping someone might know how bad/evil shoeing helps with dressage movement to the point that USHJA is discussing passing a rule about it.
I have a hard time picturing how weighted feet make a free shoulder and those bold dressage movements.
I would think the easiest answer to the no number problem, if it is that big of a problem, is that if you have no number on, your round is not placed/counted. Pretty simple.
There are currently rules about the maximum weight of boots that can be worn by jumpers in competition but the rules currently exclude shoes in those calculations. Sadly, it wouldn’t surprise me if someone decided to get around the restriction by weighting shoes instead.
Like @trubandloki I am morbidly curious as to what methods/rationale might be used in the dressage arena.
That might help with the entries with no number, but it doesn’t help that much with the ones wearing the wrong number.
Or the ones showing in classes where the placings don’t really matter, like the schooling jumpers.
maybe this is to make enforcement simpler as when the rule is only enforceable for a specific breeds then enforcement requires knowledge of just What breed the horse is.
The intent of the Rule is for the welfare of horses, not limited to a breed.
But … back to the question above… I can not see how those practices would benefit anything but those breed situations.
The shoe issue could be those saddlebred type Fresians that do “dressage.” Technically they’re not saddlebreds at all but they are often ridden/trained by the saddlebred barns and appear to my inexperienced eye to be shod very similarly. As best as I can tell the goal is not to make them move better for standard dressage but to make them go as much like saddlebreds as possible.
At dressage shows our horses must wear a number when out of the stall, handgrazing etc. I think eventers do too. Going in the ring without a number is nothing! It is so you can report to the TD/steward if you see something illegal. HJ needs more of that, not less!
Weighted shoes would not surprise me at all and since there is no good reason to use them or substances to make a horse’s legs hot, I think it is a good rule.
The proposal I find most interesting is the rule on expanding the equitation tests to 1-23. I appreciate the added specificity in how each movement is to be ridden for the purpose of the test. However, I’d like to know the rationale behind the changes proposed to the “swap horses” test:
That last bullet seems to me like a solution in search of a problem. I don’t agree that riders at a championship are unequal to the task of dropping their stirrups on a horse they’ve never met, and I think that the mandatory warm-up period enables them to get acquainted with the horse and figure out how to ride it appropriately. The Maclay Finals should not be less hard than IHSA. That said- I am sure that the people proposing the rule had logic behind that, and I’m curious what it was and would love to hear the discussion.
“Back number” is not accurate verbiage if the rule passes. A lot use pins on the saddle pad, so I find the wording interesting.
Did you watch the Medal final at Harrisburg this year?
The top two changed horses in a second test, and did the same course again from the first test, IIRC, which included a couple of counter canters. It did not go well. Chaos ensued. I don’t know if that was the reason they came up with this rule change proposal, but it seems quite possible.
Generally speaking, I think it’s a bad idea to make a rule change for something that only happened one time. That could be a fluke more than an actual problem that needs a solution.
I sure did. I watched one nice horse come up to counter canter an oxer as the first jump off a rollback turn with insufficient canter and swim through it, and the second nice horse get run into a wall to try to get a lead change.
Ultimately, you cannot legislate your judges into critical thinking (like: that was a whopping hard test that no one aced on their own horses, if they’re going to swap animals, do something else.) To me, that is the problem that needed to have been solved on that day. But 90 seconds of warmup could also have helped those riders immensely, and that is in the rule. Zayna could have gotten a feel for Quimby’s canter and known to ride up, and Grace could have learned Finnick’s lead change.
The other potential piece of rule change that could have come out of that is a specification on how many layers of further testing can be requested.
At the bottom of it, I agree with you that one bad decision does not require a rule change. I’d like to know what else went into the thinking here.
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