So I use a running martingale on my horse. He likes it. He doesn’t SEEM to tighten it at all, doesn’t SEEM to need it. But he does. I took it off last year, just to see, and he was not happy. He is a horse who has been very negative about any pressure from the bit coming anywhere OTHER than on the bars of the mouth, and I don’t use much in the way of rein aides anyway, so we get along well. As long as the rather slack and apparently uneeded running martingale remains in place. His mouth is not particularly well educated, but we get along, being soft with each other, and I know what I can’t ask him to do with my hand.
We mostly do just smaller shows, schooling shows, local shows. I usually prefer the jumper division, but this guy can do it all, as he jumps so consistently, with stellar form. So I do the hunters too with him sometimes, he usually wins in both low hunters and low jumpers at these shows. And yes, the running martingale is in place in the hunters. A huge faux pas, the fashion police turn over in their graves, I know. But I am old, and don’t care about fashion, and am not planning on going to the Royal Winter Fair, or anywhere else “fancy” and doing this.
So yesterday, a “judge” called me over to the judge’s booth to tell me that I was not allowed to use the running martingale in the over fences hunter division. I do not know what this judge’s qualifications are, if any, and I do not know her as a horseman, rider or human being. It’s a small show, and I am not going to start an argument with the judge over this. So I just said, “Fine, I’ll just go non-competitor then”. And did so. I also asked if this was a new rule change? No response on that question. So that is my question to you… Has there been a rule change about running martingales in over fences hunter classes that I don’t know about? Or was the judge wrong, thinking only because it isn’t fashionable that it isn’t allowed? If so, we will just do the little jumper divisions instead in the future, because the running martingale isn’t going anywhere. I don’t know where to look for this rule change (that I suspect is not written anywhere- because in decades past, running martingales were indeed “allowed” and often used in over fences hunter classes, and it wasn’t even unfashionable either.)
What does COTH say?
