The BIG lead change

I’ve seen it stated on the forums a couple of times that dressage horses do “changes” and hunters “swap”. An oversimplification, but I think we all get the that there’s a difference in how the change of lead is executed. BUT, since I did pony hunters as a kid 25 years ago a lot has changed in the hunter ring. Hack winners are over their backs and using themselves. The Hunter Derby seems to reward an athletic style of jumping that I don’t remember seeing back in those belly-buster hunter days.

So my question is, is the lead change next? Will we start to see, maybe just in the derbies, horses being rewarded for a more expressive change? I could just picture some Popeye K clone taking the high option and capping off the line with a big showy lead change before flowing through the corner. What do you all think? Pipe dream? Has anyone seen this happening? For how plugged in I am this could be old news! Also curious to hear any opinions on this. Thanks in advance!

I’m not sure I understand the question. Hunters aren’t really rewarded for changes? Not in and of itself, like a jump or dressage elements. It’s more about the overall picture/round, so I don’t really see them getting more points for a “big” change – maybe the opposite, if a big movement makes the change looks difficult/sticky, or is late, or otherwise throws off the canter rhythm/straightness.

I think in some classes, like derbies, they’re not rewarded so much as not penalized (too much) for having some expression after a jump, be it with a little head shake or exuberant lead change or even just a less “floaty” way of traveling, which could lead to a bigger looking lead change, with higher hock/knee action.

From what I’ve seen, hunters in general are also still not penalized for having a late front-to-back change – I think that has to go away before you start seeing bigger changes (I don’t even know how you’d ask for a “big” change, if you had a horse that swapped front-to-back. Or auto-changed. And I don’t see those going away anytime soon).

ETA: lead changes always seem to me to be a pass/fail (yes/no) thing, not so much something that is given a score. And I don’t know how that would work, given that you don’t know what lead the horses will land on after any jump. What if a horse lands on all its leads and does no changes, vs a horse does 5 changes; or a horse only does, say the left-to-right change vs horse that demonstrates ability to change both ways?

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A “big” change is going to disrupt the rhythm of the round, which is going to be a negative, not a positive. And I say that as someone whose horse has had dressage training and will toss out a big change if you have to ask for it, rather than her realizing it and tossing off an auto-swap. The auto swap always looks and feels smoother; as a rider, I don’t even feel it, which is what you want in your hunter–easy & effortless.

You don’t want a horse tossing a lot of effort into the change, because that’s not the point of the round the way it is as a movement in dressage, the effort should go towards the jump.

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Follow up: How are Derby rounds scored vs a traditional hunter round? Same format with add on points for taking the high option or the handy track?
From what I understand, in a regular HOF class the horse gets a score for each jump. Is there another score for movement? What about the soft skills, like changes or transitions at the beginning and end of the round? @JenEM @retiredhorse

Most (all?) hunter classes get a holistic score, it’s generally not broken down by jump or per movement – but you (general) can maybe pinpoint a specific jump or something that happened to affect your score, ie if you missed to a jump (an otherwise 80-score drops to the 70s) or broke stride (score of 55).

We might say a horse jumps (or moves) an “8”, for example, but they don’t usually get a score for each jump or gait or transitions or opening-closing circles. It’s more like, if you get your distances and changes and your canter rhythm is good, your overall score will be likely 80-something (as opposed to a horse that jumps a 6 or 7, and probably won’t score higher than 75 with the best ride). But if you miss or add/leave out strides or buck in a corner or skip a change, etc, your score will drop accordingly.

Technically you’re being judged the whole time you’re in the ring, so quality of the gaits and transitions matter in other-all performance. But, for the most part, I would say you don’t necessarily get MORE points for a good canter transition (it’s kind of just expected that your horse will pick up canter quietly/nicely from the walk or trot and will do a good downward transition/circle at the end), but you will be detracted points (how many is subjectively determined by the judge) if your horse throws his head in the air, looks balky, picks up the wrong lead, falls in the corner, spooks, etc.

I’m not up-to-date on derby rules, but it’s my understanding that they are also scored holistically first, so you might score 86 for the round, then extra points are rewarded for handiness (inside turns, hand gallop) and high options, bringing your score up to 96 or whatnot. If there are multiple judges, scores can be either added together (96+92=188, for example) or averaged.

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So th![](s score card thing is more of an idea than and actual practice?

[IMG]http://equestriancoachblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/scorecard-blog_featured_image.jpg)

No, it’s real; judges use them. I’m not sure how universal all the marks are. But as you can see in your example it’s more of an indication how the horse jumped the jump – if it’s a nice jump, chip, too long, flat etc – not a numerical score for each and every jump or transition/gait/opening or closing circle. At the end, you have an overall, holistic score (plus comments) rather than tallying up individual scores of every element the horse does (or doesn’t do).

The 86 score – the jumps are even/the same; guessing horse goes around pleasantly too, or there might’ve been indication that it didn’t (tail swishing, ear pinning, rushing down the lines (could be the arrow means) etc). 83 score, about half the jumps have a nice arc and half are flat. If both these horses found 8 jumps the same way, then the subjective part is which jump/movement does the judge like better.

The others have some more issues: I’m guessing R is refusal or rail, TT (or Tr?) might be broke to the trot (maybe missed a change or just trotted a step or two). Not sure what all the others mean. #79 (score of 65) might have done a 6 in a 5 stride.

They’re also judged against each other, so the first horse(s) kind of sets the tone of the scores, if that makes sense; some times bigger scores are reserved to the end of the class to leave room for brilliance. Not every class announces scores either, so competitors might not know what they scored unless they request to see the judge’s card.

Usually you get an announced score if the trip is a Classic round, or Derby, and some of the eq classes have announced numerical scores. Those look like fairly standard marks, I’m assuming from a “this is what scores look like” website?

I’ve sat with judges for schooling shows before, and it’s an educational experience. It’s not dressage, they don’t have a scribe to note everything and score each fence. They’re looking for overall performance and impression. Within a single round, one big show-offy fabulous thing is not going to outweigh the rest of the trip, though one bad thing (rail, simple change) can really drop the score. It’s not like in dressage where I know we suck at stretchy trot circles and can make up those points with our 8 halts; things aren’t scored that way in the hunter round, and my chip to the first line is not going to be cancelled out by nailing the gallop to the single oxer.

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Changes a soft skill? :lol: If I were writing a Job Posting for a hunter, it definitely would NOT be a soft skill… :slight_smile:

If you are a USEF member, reading the judging section will give you a broad brush perspective. Yes- a wrong lead in the courtesy circle will be penalized, according to the rule (HU-135 section, I believe). There are some judges on this board who can weigh in on Derby vs traditional, though I am not aware of any real judging differences- as a competitor and by-stander. I have some thoughts, not sure exactly how to articulate or if I’m even correct (again, not a judge).

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This ^^

Those little things you call “soft skills” can totally tank your round even if you found every jump perfectly. This weekend my horse decided to be dramatic with his changes, and it was escalating to playing, so the trainer did a trip with him to nip that in the bud. They had no issues on the course, found all the jumps, and he’s a good mover, but he decided to be dramatic about the last change as he was going into the closing circle, and then kicked out in protest when the pro got after him. That, rightfully so, was enough to make him last in that class, even though he won every other class he showed in that day. So, it is totally different from dressage scoring, you can’t have a good movement offset a mistake. One bad thing can undo all the good in a hunter round.

There are also some general “rule of thumb” scores, like you get a 40 if you pull a rail, a 55-60 if you have a late or missed change, etc … . but in general those scores would be completely out of the running unless it is a really bad class :lol:

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So the consensus is that an expressive lead change will not be the next big thing in hunters? It seems like things have changed so much in the hunter ring in the last 20 years. But I guess not that.

My horse has a big change about 60% of the time — even moreso if footing is sloppy (he can’t stand a puddle) or if I ask for the change with more leg than he likes. We definitely get scored down somewhat for them and understandably so. It disrupts the rhythm of everything going on and when compared to someone who is riding a horse that isn’t super-duper proud of his lead changes, we should score below them.

Maybe it’s regional or a difference in trainers, but 20+ years ago when I rode hunters I was expected (by my trainer) to ride the horse back to front and over their back.

Even when brilliance was rewarded, I would never expect expressive lead changes to be rewarded and they do disrupt the consistency and do not lend to the idea of an easy pleasant ride.

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I don’t think so. If anything it will be that some expression is not penalized, rather than rewarding extravagant lead change.

Maybe in the equitation where changes are one of the possible test, but even then a low key easy change is more “pretty”/smooth than a big one.

Even if judges were hypothetically rewarding changes, like I mentioned earlier you can’t predict what lead the horses will land on, so how do you score horses that do zero changes vs one that changes in every corner vs one that only changes one way (eg always lands left). You can’t throw in extra changes to make up for a missed distance for example. And swaps in front of jumps are not encouraged/often detract from the score too. Even picking up the wrong lead or starting the wrong way and doing a clean change before the first jump is kind of taboo. I’m not sure if that’s considered crossing your tracks, which could lead to elimination or score of 40 (as a refusal), or up to the judge to decide how much to detract.

Remember, the whole idea is that everything looks effortless except the jump, which should be jaw dropping - it should be business in between the jumps, all party over the jumps. So all the pieces between the jumps should NOT distract from the actual jump. Big expressive change is effectively becoming the center of attention. That said, if you have a great jumper, I don’t think they should get knocked down for playing or being expressive in the change, but that is different from being rewarded for it.

Also, given the loose contact and forward moving frame a hunter should have, I would expect a different style of change than a collected dressage horse would offer. That doesn’t mean any given horse can’t do both, but it is unrealistic to expect a horse in a classic hunter frame to do movements like an upper level dressage horse, and vice versa.

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The differences in changes comes, at least in part, from differences in the canter. A third-level and above canter (flying changes start at third) and a hunter course canter are different beasts; thus the changes that come out of them are different.

Plus a change that disrupts the canter rhythm isn’t desired for a variety of reasons in hunters, or even in eq or jumpers.

I say this as a HJ rider who also showed through fourth level dressage and taught changes to my own two horses. With both we taught changes early bc I was doing both disciplines. One of those horses showed through fourth level and schooled up to two tempis. No problems. And both horses could mix up counter canter and changes effortlessly.

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Yes. Changes in dressage are in a collected frame at a specific location. My horse did the A/O Hunters one weekend with my daughter. Two weeks later did 3rd level dressage in a double bridle with an adult who was 1/2 leasing him. His changes in the hunters is automatic in a low hunter frame. In dressage they were in a collected frame where he changed when asked. His was not allowed to practice changes as his primary job is a hunter. He has no problem switching back and forth and counter canter effortlessly too.

Right. A correct change is back to front whether it is dressage, hunters or reining. Not sure why people think it is different for each discipline.