I remember that! I think it generated a lot of controversy at the time, but I can’t quite remember the circumstances. I thought maybe it was that the choice to give re rides was quite late?
It’s not common, but it happens.
A friend of mine had a tree blow over in front of a jump in a hunter class at Lake Placid a few years ago. His horse stopped at the jump, and the judges conferred for a second and then said he could either start the course over, or continue from that point once the tree was fixed.
His horse had done the first part of the course really well, so he just circled and continued from that point, and he ended up getting a good ribbon in the class.
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At least in IHSA, you could get a re-ride after a fall up until fairly recently (if the situation warranted it). Not sure if that is a new rule.
Out of curiosity I went on CMH and watched the round, on video you can’t hear or see what happened. I would be interested to hear from someone who actually witnessed it how dramatic the noise was. You clearly see the pony have a strong reaction that indisputably led to the chip. So on one hand if the judges saw what happened, I can understand not wanting that to kill a kid’s result at something they’ve worked for all year.
At the same time, I feel like disruptive noise in the stands is a daily occurrence in the indoors at WEC and I’ve seen horses spook in some of the derby classes as a result, and no one even discusses a re-ride!
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It was a low black box under a jump that was the first in a line set against the side of the ring where there was a lot of clattering of silverware as people ate dinner. Lots of stops. At least one person fell off IIRC. I don’t remember the year but it was definitely pre-COVID. Also don’t remember what was done about it—I recall a lot of discussion. I may have done an unofficial Maclay report here that year; will see if I can find it.
Report. Dropbox links are sadly no longer available.
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I have never seen or heard of this happening. It’s a horse show. Stuff happens. That’s part of the test of a show environment? It stinks when it happens to you. It has happened to all of us (thanks jump crew for jumping out of the woods immediately next to the combination right while I was jumping through it, I had always wondered if my horse could do a 90 degree turn in a one stride) and I don’t think anyone got a re-ride. It’s an extremely weird precedent to set and even more eyebrow raising that it was a big name that got it.
If they wanted to let her re-ride to build her and the pony’s confidence, I love it - the spirit of pony finals. To have her win…
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I just typed elsewhere that, for the longest time, I thought judges in equitation classes had some discretion in how they penalized riders encountering trouble (like with downed rails – was it rider error? Ding. Was it just garbage luck? Less of a ding).
And for that longest time, I also thought a rider in an equitation class might even be nominally rewarded for handling trouble well.
I haven’t seen a replay but watched the class yesterday. Of course I was actually looking away momentarily when the spook happened, and I missed the chip. I heard the commentators talking about the lousy luck of a commotion over the rail and that was it. I didn’t realize there was a chip, too.
This sounds like a situation where I’d rather the rider be penalized in context than given a re-ride. The other online discussion was trying to figure out what merited a re-ride and so far it’s sounding like act-of-God stuff (jumps blowing over), not stuff going on over the rail. Who else remembers McLain Ward losing the GP at Devon at the last fence because of some ringside nonsense? I’m pretty sure that happened.
Is there a standard deduction for a chip? Yes, I have a copy of Judging WTF but it’s in the other room and I’m lazy. Why can’t it be judged it in context like dropping a rail?
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Would bet $ the pony had earplugs in
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Not to mention, both judges and kid’s family all live in Wellington.
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What are the rules around your child training with the judge of a class your client is in?
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Had a loose horse from cross country running along the arena fence right in the middle of my dressage test at AECs. No re-ride for the couple of moves I completed on now very wound up horse before they rang the bell to stop me. Rest of my test was crap after we resumed.
Friend was in the middle of a championship-deciding round at an AA show years ago when the water truck in the arena next to her backfired. No reride for her.
Sh*t happens sometimes and that is part of horse showing. This is an awful, awful precedence to set, especially at this level.
A horse spooking at something outside of the arena is different than a poorly set jump that affects everyone or the wind knocking down a jump and making it literally impossible to complete the course.
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I don’t love this precedent outside of IEA/IHSA.
I think this situation is different from the 2019 Maclay Regionals mentioned up thread, where a jump was changed after about 20% of the riders had gone. In that case, 50% of the first portion of the class had had significant difficulty at that jump. It was clearly an issue of course construction and someone’s best intentions in course design became an unfair test of equine eyesight and perception instead of riding skill. The issue impacted a significant portion of the class and was expected to continue to do so. Changing it was potentially a horse welfare issue and, given the number of falls that had already occurred at that fence, an issue of rider safety.
This problem appeared to impact one rider. And, having shown in a number of indoor arenas with big echo-y seating areas, you can’t tell me that was the only time in the entire class that the spectators were disruptive. In that sense it’s a predictable disruption- unlike a helicopter flying over the arena on its way to land at a neighboring property, a jump blowing down, a goose flying into the side of the horse’s face during the class, the judge running out of the judge’s box because of a swarm of hornets, or the entire county fire department blowing past with lights and sirens blazing. These are all situations where I have seen the judge and steward give the option to re-run a ride or a class. You don’t expect those things to happen at a horse show, but you do expect people to be loud and kids to be obnoxious in the stands.
I lost a medal final as a junior because of similar disruption from the stands in an echo-y indoor arena- I don’t remember if someone ran down the stairs or fell down them, but it was a commotion after fence 10, and my horse spooked and bolted. The wall and a pulley rein were used to stop. It was the trip of my life until that point. That’s horse showing.
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What a major bummer for you - but, said perfectly. You could have the trip of your life but if something happens that spooks the horse, that’s show biz baby. It’s a slippery slope to allow re-rides in case of a spook. What’s to say someone could claim the light off a cell phone caught the horses eye and caused a runout? Or, a bird flying from the rafters in the covered caused a bolt on the way to the final oxer? I don’t think it’s fair at all and, know that there are some very peeved people out there. It is a bummer for the kid that it happened but, sometimes it’s not your day, even if it’s the biggest class of the year.
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Prefacing this with: none of this is the kid’s fault.
But I don’t love the re-ride. Horses spook, that’s life. Obnoxious kids aren’t “an act of god”. I would’ve been fine with the bare minimum deduction by the rule book, given the circumstances, but a do over feels inappropriate. We already have so much bias to deal with in judging, but now we are going to allow re-rides and WINS off of normal (if frustrating) parts of horse showing? How does that help prevent judges from shoeing in their favorite rider despite a lesser ride than others?
I’ve had photographers pop out of shadows, dogs get loose, cars backfire or alarms go off, oblivious family members and spectators screaming/popping balloons/walking while hula hooping next to the ring, etc etc. The announcers or officials get involved as needed to address the issues, which I think would’ve been appropriate in this situation. No re-rides.
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This.
There was a re-ride during the horse swap phase (final four riders) of USET Finals East perhaps a little less than a decade ago. In that instance, IIRC, a typically VERY reliable equitation horse stopped twice with different riders. It was extremely uncharacteristic for this horse and judges, trainers, riders, all agreed as such — he was pulled (and I think later found out to have strained something) and riders got re-rides. That seemed far and made sense to progress the competition.
This was not.
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Agree,and none is the kid’s fault. Also- sometimes I wonder how much the name goes along with it, trainer…
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I would be there is approximately 110% chance it and the majority of the others did in that arena as well. But that actually makes me wonder even more what happened that the pony had such a strong reaction. I do not love the precedent of re-rides, distractions in the stands happen all the time, but I’d still be curious to hear/read a firsthand account of exactly what happened in the stands. That said, it also isn’t easy to go back in, walk to the end of the ring, and re-do only part of the course so kudos to the rider for putting it together when she went back in.
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I’ve only ever had re-rides for errors made by horse show personnel. In one case, a member of the jump crew stood in front of an option jump on a long derby course as I was approaching it, resulting in my horse running out to avoid hitting him. The judge did not count the runout and let me reapproach the jump as if nothing had happened.
The second time, the judge had received a different copy of the jump-off course than what was posted for the competitors, and I happened to be the first in the class to go clear. The judge stopped the clock and rang me out as I was approaching the last jump, which I jumped and went clear. I then watched all the trainers converge on the steward and the judge’s booth as they argued about the correct course. I was deemed to have ridden the correct course, but since the clock had been stopped they could not use my round. I was invited to ride the jump-off again and unfortunately had a rail down that time, which counted. So the re-ride didn’t benefit me in that case - I would have preferred to keep my original ride if only they had timed it.
Re-rides for things that are not errors made by horse show personnel are a different thing, and I agree that it creates a grey zone where a judgment call might vary from one judge to the next.
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The exact same thing happened to Susie Hutchison at the World Cup final in Gothenburg many years ago.
The jump crew was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time, and her horse decided not to jump over them. The judges did not penalize her for it.
Which just shows that goof ups can happen at even the biggest and most important events.
Edited to add: Here’s the video.
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