FWIW Bruce Davidson would often have multiple entries in the events I was competing in. Organizers regularly placed each of his horses in separate divisions almost insuring he would receive firsts in each of them and maximizing points for rider of the year. When competitors objected we were told “But what a thrill it would be if you beat him” I don’t think it ever happened
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I think that dressage is, in many ways, a more level playing field than most other horse sports. I don’t think that there is any real need to further divide classes at the upper levels. At the lower levels, though (Intro, Training, 1st, maybe 2nd?), I think that a system like the one eventing uses could be easy to implement and also beneficial in creating a more level playing field. So, Intro Horse vs. Intro Rider vs. Intro Open, for example.
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For all of you thinking that the sport can’t be made fair or have “like compete against like” because the horse element of the equation is necessary and uncontrollable, I have news for you: Horse racing figured out a way. And, as far as I understand it, so has Western World where horses and riders are ranked by the amount of prize money won. If they can do it, so can any other branch of horse showing. Where there is money at stake, political will follows and a way is found. It seems to me, then, that all that needs to happens is the paying customers of horse showing ask for “like against like” competition.
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I would be in support of changing the division of classes - there are amateurs with deep pockets, and there are pros who teach a couple up-downers every week.
However, if this were to be done, I think the goal should be to make the sport more welcoming to new people. The sport is sometimes perceived as being elitist, and can appear to have a high barrier to entry when you go to a rated show and see fancy imported Warmbloods even in the Training Level classes. I’d like to see the sport’s base grow - even if people don’t choose to specialize in it and move towards the upper level, the foundations of Training/1st/2nd level will benefit almost every horse and rider. That’s why I’m glad to see Western Dressage gaining a foothold - and its positive emphasis on some of the other western disciplines.
I think that dividing up classes based on level of the rider would be a great way to make the sport more welcoming to new people. For example, if you have shown at X level or above prior to the start of the competition year, you are in the Open class for X level, if you haven’t, you can show in the Green Division for X level.
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I’ve long been an advocate for this! To me, a good system has to be:
- simple - easy for everyone to understand
- easily verifiable. This is where the current AA system fails miserably.
- make some intuitive sense - that you’re comparing ‘like with like’ and being fair to the most number of people, without breaking down into tiny segments/classes of 1. I don’t like the 'not scored above a __" plan because you’d hate for people to be disappointed in a high score!
Instead of dividing AA and Open, I would far rather seen “[level X] horse”, “[level X] rider” and “open [level X]” classes at each level (or possibly just rider and open). Horse classes would be limited to horses who haven’t shown more than one level above the test level. Similarly, rider classes would be limited to riders who haven’t shown more than one level above the competition level. A “training level rider” class made of riders who have never shown above first is far more fair than a class of AAs, some at their first season of dressage shows and others bringing up their 3rd FEI quality baby! Similarly a “3rd level horse” class would be limited to horses who have never shown above 4th and seems more fair than a 3rd level class with some riders on PSG+ schoolmasters who can do tempis in their sleep and others making their first public attempts at changes 
Show results are archived and publicly available, so far harder to cheat the system than the current AA rules with no grey area.
Although if you ask me, the true way to level the playing field is to make high quality coaching/training available to everyone at an affordable price point. I’ve seen far lower quality horses win at dressage shows because they were better ridden, especially in Jr/YR and AA divisions. Sure, it’s uncommon at the elite levels of the sport where the quality of riding is high across the board, but at typical regional-level USDF shows…good riders beat fancy horses on a regular basis. (and I’ve been on both sides of that equation!). I also think freeing AAs to make a little money in the horse world on the side would help make entry level dressage instruction more affordable, something sorely needed.
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I would hate classes to be divided by breed/type. Doing it by score would have to be rider/horse pair because on my ranch-bred QH I may be lucky to break 60% but on my KWPN I would be hard pressed to get lower than a 65%, so by which horse should I be judged?
They do have a system in Germany which works. Its a system which is based on the rider and the horse… Primarily the rider collects ranking points… So you can split the classes after the entries are in by ranking points… But some classes are also split according to the horse.
The idea behind it is that its allowed for a young rider with an experienced horse to start in lower classes. But after 3 ribbons (or high scores) he maxes out (also because he collected ranking points). It is also ok for a rider with many ranking points to ride a young horse without placements in lower classes. As soon as rider and horse are both ranked higher they have to start in higher classes as well.
I think it is a rather fair system… Of course there are problems as well. But there is no worries about earning some bucks for grooming or whatever for people with less money and in general everybody rides against people which are on the same level. And it is rewarding if you beat a famous rider on a young horse 
Because that may happen as well.
There are some classes which are different, if you ride qualifiers for the Bundeschampionat, you can forget it if you are not a well known professional rider… Somehow the judging system is amazing in placing the right people in the ribbons… My husband rode a qualifier some years ago and the well known people qualified of course and then the amazing thing was, all the remaining horses got the same score and were placed on the same rank… I thought that was amazing… And of course my husband beat one of the qualified horses very clear 2 weeks later in another show with different judges… So the system is not 100% perfect.
But for normal classes it is very good…
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That’s my point. And it was, too, when I pointed out to the poster who thought higher education was a fine example of “meh… life isn’t fair and that’s cool.”
In other areas, people do want to find ways to reward quality rather than mere wealth or always wealth first. That those are not successful (or someone doesn’t think so) doesn’t mean that know one has tried and, therefore, we shouldn’t either. But if you look around, you’ll find all kinds of places that try to have competitions where “like competes against like.”
On another note, I don’t think the purpose of the levels was to create parity in competition. Rather, those were designed as a series of “mid-term exams” along the way to producing a finished horse.
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I am not sure that most shows would have entries large enough to support a lot of splitting without ending up with one horse classes.
I do wish they could find a way to make the lower levels more focused on training rather than quality of gaits. Because there are so few movements, the gait score has a bigger impact than at higher levels. Although it is theoretically about correct gaits, in practice gifted horses with huge gaits have a large advantage if the riding were comparable. So the newbie with a limited horse may “compete against herself” and be glad for improvement, but it would be nicer if the tests were mathematically able to reward the correct training more. (And if newbie has a wonderful mover, it may be harder for trainer to convince her of holes in the training when she is winning classes!)
Since most training level horses and riders are not going to FEI (or really trying) it would be nice if some tests could be written to emphasize more strongly the training of both and not the horse’s gifts.
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If you really want to “level the playing field”, we need to go back to NOT giving extra points for big gaits in every. single. movement. Back in the early days (and I hate to say this, because I’m not one to say it was SO MUCH BETTER in the early days), each movement was individually scored based on the quality of the requirements of that movement - so a shoulder in was scored based on bend, angle, balance, horse’s acceptance of the aids. The only time you saw any comment on GAITS in such a movement was if there was a loss in purity/degradation of the gaits.
There were certain movements where a big moving horse would obviously gain points - we use to call them the “brilliance movements”, such as the extended trot. But there were only a few such movements in a test. Then there was the overall gaits score down at the bottom of the test - and that big moving horse gained a few extra points there too. But a well ridden test on a less fancy, but more correct horse, could beat the fancy horse. Of course, all things being equal (and WHEN does that ever happen?), the bigger moving horse would win because they’d gain a few points on the brilliance movements and on the overall gaits score. But it wouldn’t be a huge wipeout because they didn’t get an extra 2 points on every. single. movement.
That is the only way I can see any leveling of the playing field. If you’ve ever participated in, or watched the intercollegiate dressage competitions, the judges are told to NOT comment or score quality of the gaits unless it is related to purity, rider destruction of the gait. I’ve judged OPR Club shows too (Old People’s Riding Club), and they have the same requirement. And I will tell you, it DOES change the placings - it is very interesting to judge with that outlook (a bit of a disclaimer here, I am only an L graduate, NOT a licensed judge, but have been so for over 10 years, so I do have over a decade of experience).
I know this is not likely to happen, since the FEI will never adopt that concept - the big moving horse means too much MONEY in the Warmblood marketing machine that comes out of Europe. But - it would be interesting to add a division where the gaits don’t come into all the individual scores.
I don’t know how else you can level up the playing field. In the shows I am in, we don’t see individual divisions for AA, Jr/YR, and Pro unless the classes are big - I generally compete against the Pro riders. And since many Pro riders are struggling with the same stuff I struggle with, and are teaching mostly lower levels, I don’t find that an issue. I do feel intimidated when I’m up against the same trainers that are competing and place at the Young Horse Championships, or even the Olympics, but I think everyone feels that way. I also feel it when I’m riding my home trained, home bred horse, or my “free because he’s a PITA” horse, and I’m up against someone’s FEI schoolmaster (showing lower levels) in full training. You can’t equalize rider funds - that just isn’t going to happen.
I will admit, I enjoy watching a well ridden, fancy horse. I don’t want to see this go away. I just want the “Fancy” part to have LESS of an advantage then it currently has. I feel that sometimes we (including judges, trainers, competitors) lose sight of the training aspect of dressage sometimes, and get swept away by the fancy aspect.
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I think there should be division between AA and Open; though, I agree that the current rules for AA are not logical. In this case, it is the rules for AA that need to be revamped.
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I totally understand why people want to separate gaits from the quality of the requirements, but I also have zero idea how one could feasibly do it. The physical qualities that make Horse A have better gaits are the same qualities that will make performing the movements easier. Let’s say Horse B, for example, has a straighter hind leg, a shorter back, and it built downhill. It’s going to be much harder for him to be supple in the lateral movements, and he’s probably going to have to compensate elsewhere in his body somehow, because he’s simply not as athletically suited to doing a shoulder-in as Horse A.
Where do you draw the line, and say that “this is judging the gaits” versus “this is judging the movements”? The more modest moving horses can win against the Warmbloods with a talented enough rider, but there is a natural advantage to using a horse whose conformation lends itself to the sport.
I agree with you that the gaits have a huge influence in the score at the lower levels, but it’s hard to prevent that when there’s simply less skill involved in riding/training a trot lengthening versus a half-pass. The upper levels demand more out of the rider, and they require more training to do well, which can give a great rider on a capable (but “average”) horse an advantage compared to a decent rider on an extravagant horse.
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Well-said, I think it’s imperative to make the sport seem welcoming to the newbies who might suffer from sticker shock. Without a broad base, who but the uber-wealthy “old money” will fund things that go on at the top? And what happens when new money is not attracted?
that would be great but, I’ve only met one judge that i believe could be that impartial and also that knowledgeable about so many different breeds. the only way for that to work is for the gaits of the horse to be measured on true rhythm, cadence, and stride vs flamboyancy.
and manni01, if you don’t believe you earned the ribbon you can always donate it back. you aren’t required to keep it.
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Hmmm. When I was growing up they had Limit hunter classes. Different from Green. Limit, Novice, Maiden. There were no Baby hunters, except maybe foals in a Get of Sire, Produce of Dam class.
As for leveling the field in dressage, dressage already takes place on as level a “field” as you can get in competition. Unless you start having breed-specific classes. I agree with the poster who said get a horse, enter a show, compete. Might not want to point a TWH towards PSG as it is now, but I’ve known some dressage riders who don’t believe gaited horses should compete even at local lower-level schooling shows.
I honestly think the best way of “leveling the field” for dressage would be for every venue in one region to have the same kind of footing, so a horse from Barn A might show as well at Venues B and C as in his own home arena. But would anyone really want that?
I dunno, guys. The huge gaits usually (not always) come with a brain that requires a tactful ride in order to produce relaxation. You can spend all the money you want, but if you can’t defuse some of that tension, you’re still going to get those darn 4s and 5s anyway. I know; I’ve ridden my own lovely-moving mare to really low scores due to tension that crept into every movement (darn you, chaotic warmup-- and my own mismanagement, I guess).
Where you’re double-screwed is if you have a tense, limited-moving horse. That’s a double whammy of bad news for your scores.
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I would also remove the “gait advantage” for every single movement. I have actually listen to a judge say that they judge each movement based on the starting value of the gait: So an 8 mover starts at an 8 and goes up or down. A 6 mover starts at a 6 and goes from there. This was from a judge at an event (not a dressage show). It was very disheartening to hear… Should (at least) eventing dressage be judged on acceptance of aids, correctness of the movement, etc for each individual horse?
And I’ve actually benefited from this judging style - used to event a horse who, no matter how tense, never lost his loose elastic movement. He was such a big mover in front that he could not be tracking up behind and still place very high (in fact never below top 3 after dressage). He never gained his 5th leg jumping or become a catty agile jumper though, so we never progressed beyond training level. My newer horse may be more correct in his training but never ever come close to this other horse w/r/t dressage scores and I much prefer my newer horse on cross country! I don’t think that this is correct for dressage as a discipline, at least for eventing dressage.
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Agree with you on that one!!
Just FYI, this is how judges are currently trained to score the movements. It wasn’t an eccentricity of that judge. According to Janet Foy, this methodology developed in response to criticism that, under the previous methodology, “judges weren’t recognizing quality.” So either the pendulum has swung too far, or there is no pleasing some people.
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Make a living is a big word. You can only sell horses you own. Except for a few priviledged, how many horses can an AA owns (and pay for) ? and then train and sell for a big enough profit to sustain themselves?
Between the boarding, the vet, the training, the tack and all that jazz, not many AA can earn a living from selling their horses.
Those who can usually don’t even need to…
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