They should have given you a clear round for your score.
I’ve had car troubles and been super late and had organizers bend over backwards to help accommodate. I hope you never went there again lol
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Nope, myself and a couple others in the division were just listed as withdrawn. The end. We had a very average dressage score but went clean xc and would have done on SJ too, and we would have been 6th. Le sigh.
@Xanthoria I hope you filled out some type of review about what happened at this event. Things like that should not happen. How is a person to know to look at the board like that?
I believe you said this was recognized …
When shit like this happens, the riders must absolutely press the grievance with the USEA or other sanctioning body (even the local association). Get the others who were also screwed to join in and file a grievance as well.
Every time paying customers lie down and do the doormat thing, this behavior by officials will continue.
The best protection we have from high-handed, uncaring show officials is that we give ourselves. No one else has that job if we do not speak up.
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I was at a high-profile (for the Area) 3-day years ago. In the Novice SJ ring, one rider after another was being announced as “Eliminated” at the end of their round. None of the riders or spectators knew why. Finally the horrified trainers got together and stopped the next horse at the in-gate, to demand the SJ judge explain the eliminations before anyone else did their round.
Turned out that the riders were missing the finish flags, in the opinion of the judge. This was because the flags were improperly set up. They didn’t match the course designer’s intended layout, which the SJ judge had in hand apparently. Every rider saw the same path through the flags, as the flags were set, but that wasn’t the intention of the course designer.
There was a delay, the TD came and other officials, and a bit of a mess of riders complaining and officialdom waffling around. But finally the “E” rounds got their scores back. It was hard to hear well to know how they ‘fixed’ the flag problem for the remaining riders. For the riders that already went to get a score, they would all have to ride the same course. So they probably left the flags where they were. That way all the riders passed through the flags in the same manner as the early riders.
Had the riders and trainers not spoken up, I think most or all of the class would have finished on “E”. Absolutely ridiculous. The SJ judge should have figured out that something was off and looked into it after the first few all made the same “mistake”. No one rode what the course designer intended, because that wasn’t how the flags had been placed. But if the judge won’t do their job, then the riders have to speak up for themselves.
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Was this event on Startbox? I am wondering if checking that frequently would have helped.
How often should you have to check that?
I 100% agree! However the last Area 4 HT I was at changed mildly quite a bit over the weekend. The heat index was 100 so they tried to keep things moving. The 10 min the OP is talking about is reasonable. I would have checked Startbox Fri night and then again first thing Sat morning and then multiple times that morning as riders start dropping out so times move up. They also had overhead speakers announcing to check your times.
One of the shows I have ridden in was notorious for the start times of SJ. One year it roughly followed the start box times but was a free for all per class. Which was fine since you could at least plan when to be on your horse and warmed up.
The next year was a freaking disaster. I was told by the TD the day before SJ was going to be by the times on Start Box. When I showed up at the show it had changed to a division free for all. I got on the board as quickly as I could but still had to wait over an hour, in heat quickly heading to 90+ F (I trailered in so I didn’t have a stall with a fan to keep the horse in) and the GS kept allowing riders to skip the line. Thankfully my horse took it upon himself to take a snooze with a bucket of water at his feet and we had a great round. But a lot of people got quite flustered and the scores reflected it.
I’m not sure if the SJ was changed the next year (I didn’t have a horse to ride) and I was JJ the whole show. I do know a lot of people complained about it.
I feel like no matter how stadium is run people complain.
I have had people try to tell me that “it is always done this way here” when I know for a fact that it has not been done that way in a very long time (I have had the same volunteer job for many years).
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One time I was riding cross-country at a schooling horse trial, and someone decided to ditch the start times and make it “put your name in with the steward” list. [But this is why I don’t do h/j/e any more … ]
The way they communicated this was “Warm up first, then put your name in. We aren’t taking names that aren’t warmed up because then they aren’t ready to go when called. The list is short, you won’t wait long.”
I went and did a little flatting and a few warm-up jumps and went back to the steward. It was a bit before my original start time, but close. By then there was a mob of riders circling around the steward and the list was 45 minutes long. Many riders weren’t warming up at all. They were putting in their names in and then figuring out when they could do a few circles and a warm-up jump just before their turn. That included a fair number of riders whose original start times were after mine. The steward had frankly lost control of the situation.
It was later in the afternoon and my horse & I weren’t going to place anyway, so the extra 45 minutes were just not worth it to me. I withdrew and headed for home without riding cross-country.
The next year the same venue announced the same-ish date schooling horse trial. I sent a polite email to the organizer telling her why I was interested in entering, but not if they planned to do the no-start-time cross-country again. I had to know their committed plan before I would enter.
She replied very nicely and frankly that she completely understood and that the change by the steward had been a disaster for her as well. She had many complaints from riders, plus the starting was poorly managed and it took longer to run the division than was scheduled. Several people withdrew in frustration as I did. Of those that did wait, some waited rather longer than 45 minutes.
She said she’d never allow that to happen again! Next time, ride times! 
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You must have been at a larger schooling show. Here in the midwest, it just says be ready for CC after stadium meaning once you caught your breath from stadium, popped over a few CC jumps and off you went. I rarely waited 10 min but again, area 4.
Last summer my daughter and I drove 6 hours to a schooling HT at a venue that puts on multiple recognized in a year. So fantastic facility, courses that are commensurate to running recognized and as many as 100 horses running. You get to school the courses on Friday and then do a schooling HT on Saturday. On Friday the management announced to make sure you check your times for the next day as there are “last minute changes.” Sitting in a restaurant after dinner on Friday night we pulled out the iPad and checked our ride times.
The next morning I head down to dressage only to discover the time I had gotten from the prior night had been changed by 30 minutes and my division was over. The steward saw that the judge had still not left the box and told me to hurry over to the ring and maybe I could still ride. She begrudgingly let me ride. So on a 4 year old baby at one of his first times out at a big venue I trotted down the center line with no warmup, none. Unless you include the single time around the ring I fit in before the bell. Young horse was super, we had a few less than polished moments and lost a couple marks here and there but still ended up with a nice competitive score and I was completely tickled with how well he handled it. But yowza it could have been ugly! And potentially dangerous if it had been an inexperienced rider on a super green horse not quite so level headed.
I kinda shrugged it off but the daughter was really perturbed because she felt responsible. Turns out not only had she checked at dinner, she had opened the iPad up about 11pm for one last quick glance before turning out the lights. Considering it was a morning ride working backward is how we determined what time to get up. So she went marching off to the office (after I told her to be polite!) It turns out they changed the ride times about 8:00pm --right after we checked at dinner. When she went back and checked the spread sheet at 11:00pm she learned that the program doesn’t refresh the info just hitting the refresh arrow, you actually have to close the page and reopen it to get the updated times.
The min I get up in the morning, I check times. You’ve got to check them in the morning too.
If you’re first up and planning on hauling in that morning, you can still get screwed here, especially if you did all your braiding and packing the night before.
There is no real reason why times should be changed more than a minute or two after 11pm, particularly for the early AM rides. That’s ridiculous.
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Yeah… I am usually of the “live and let live” camp when it comes to these kinds of things – organizing a show is usually a logistical nightmare and I try to be as flexible as possible to accommodate the people who put the show on for us – but count me in as someone who would absolutely be furious to find myself in Xanthoria’s position…
I also agree there is no reason, barring a catastrophic incident like a sudden storm or unpredictable event, for there to be changes to start times posted after the last ride of the day. There are so many people who truck in for shows that a change in the AM ride times means that they could be completely screwed and miss their ride.
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Once, back in the day of mailing ride times (I feel old!) my postcard arrived with incorrect times. My jump times were erroneously printed as two hours late. When we arrived at the show and checked in, times were not yet posted, and then we got busy doing dressage and walking courses, and I didn’t realize there was an error until I saw the rest of my division out jumping, while my horse was untacked and munching hay on the trailer. The organizer refused to let me ride, despite the fact that the senior division followed, so the same course was still in use. It wound up being the last show we did before I unexpectedly lost that horse, so it made an impression. I have been maniacal about rechecking ride times ever since!
I ran the stadium in gate and they were running it by assigned times. I almost went insane with all the people wanting to change their times.
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