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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Absolutely, I should have added that I don’t begrudge them their mistakes - horse show personnel are as human as the rest of us, and I appreciated the efforts to make things as fair as possible, under the circumstances.
Deciding that one noisy child on the bleachers was worthy of a re-ride while another rider has to deal with their horse reacting more mildly but reacting nonetheless to a slightly less noisy child in the bleachers, on the other hand, seems less fair than correcting genuine mistakes by the horse show.
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Conspiracy theories belong on Diva.
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And you’ll find them there, too. Conspiracy theory or not, it is incredibly bad optics.
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Good lords, Suzie had every intention of just jumping them 
Thanks for that share, that was great. The way my ears caught “3 faults” for the refusal… I had almost forgotten.
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There are definitely a few signs that it was a while ago.
It also looked to me like the bit slipped out of his mouth when he stopped and she had to put it back in, but it’s hard to tell on the video.
If you’re talking about Suzie’s round I don’t believe the bit slipped. I didn’t see her put it back in and I think, iirc, that there is a small strap that went under the chin.
I’d love to know the story behind this bridle. Was the horse sensitive in his face? Or maybe he liked to carry the bit himself. Pretty amazing horsemanship.
Editing to add link to an article that briefly mentions the bridle. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=http://threedaysthreeways.blogspot.com/2010/01/susie-hutchison-with-bridle-less-horse.html&ved=2ahUKEwjxv8zS3fSHAxX1LzQIHXzNAHAQFnoECBcQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1Cc9x1l6MMApJwWi_35UWL
This isn’t a new rule. I remember it in place in the mid-80s when a competitor of mine was granted one when a flock of geese landed in the ring during her round. It is up to the judge’s discretion to grant a re-ride. I believe they are usually granted for something that is deemed an “act of god.”
I’ve never gotten a re-ride. I think the only time I saw one was during the aforementioned Maclay regionals.
Bunch of metal boxes fall off a hand cart and clatter to the ground right outside the ring behind my horse as we go into a line. No re-ride.
Large orange cat spooks horse who proceeds to buck me off in a dressage test. No re-ride, though it was enough back in the day that I was allowed to get back on and continue the test.
Kid is doing medal final work-off and a bunch of local yokels gallop past the end of the ring (Portuguese Bend show at Empty Saddle Club) and spook the horse. No re-ride.
Chain reaction blow-up in the scariest class I’ve ever ridden in (an AA under saddle class, ironically also at the Empty Saddle Club). No re-ride. I did win that one on the horse I was hacking for someone as he didn’t blow up AND was a lovely mover.
Etc.
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It sounds like maybe they should either change the name of the place or not hold shows at the Empty Saddle Club.
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It got its start as a male-only club where good old boys could ride and rope (yes, there were cattle chutes), and drink. They kind of liked the income from the horse shows though until the neighbors complained about too much traffic.
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Self fulfilling name, I think.
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I think it was fair to do what the judges did. They had scored her jumps up until the point that those kids behaved very badly and spooked the pony.
The rider was only allowed to repeat the three fences that were coming up after the pony was spooked, not the whole course.
If nothing else, hopefully this will be a lesson in manners for those kids that were behaving selfishly, with no thought about the consequences of their actions to the horse and rider in the ring. I hope that they learned a lesson from this experience, and that trainer or parents gave them a good talking to.
Opens up a Pandora’s box for re-rides.
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