And no offense but you also weren’t doing it under the lights at PBIEC, in a high pressure big money class in a stadium your horses don’t regularly show in, with a large crowd, so it seems like a pretty big stretch to try to make that an apples to apples comparison and imply that a “ragtag band of backcountry hunt-seat riders could ride better.” I was there in person for that class and I feel like it is an overstatement to say “a lot really struggled” but that’s just my personal impression/recollection. There were mistakes made at various points on the course (including that one), sure, but even top riders are human, and there was also some pretty awesome riding, like the rounds Nick Haness put in on Queen Celeste, a catch ride.
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Equitation finals absolutely needs a numerical system. All equitation for that matter. Then from start to finish you know where you stand and I think it would be harder to show favoritism.
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I presume the same judges score a Derby as a normal class. In which case, they will reward what they are familiar with, what they are used to seeing in the ring, and so difference will be marked down, consciously or unconsciously. By evolution, what was originally supposed to put some zip into shows becomes slower too. What would be interesting would be to have show jumpers judge a Derby.
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I do think it’s time for there to be more transparency with scores. It wouldn’t be terribly difficult to do so, and it may be a valuable tool to h helping riders understand what they need to improve.
That being said, I wouldn’t count on it bringing fairness to the sport. I also have witnessed dressage tests where the person scored higher than they should have because of their name. At one show, the horse just completely missed all the tempis going one direction, and still won. And I was just a spectator, so no teeth in the game.
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I agree it’s a very different environment, and it was set for a scopey, stretch through the one.
But there were quite a few rounds in a row that went for the one that had pop chips in two, and I do not remember many who went for the one-stride and were that successful. The announcers on the live stream remarked on it several times - that they felt the one was handier/more showy, but the early rounds having significant issues likely influenced the majority of the class to go for the two stride option.
Believe me, I’m not knocking the top riders. My only point is that when elements like that are not regularly part of derby/big hunter class courses, they are going to catch horses and riders off guard.
Interestingly, our seats were directly facing that element, and there was a visual effect for the horses that played a role in some of the early issues – if you did the normal turn that looked like it should work, it looked to the horse like they were aiming for the middle standard between the two jumps on the second element. That’s what happened in Liza’s crash, the horse never got his eye on the second jump. The ones that had no issue went past the turn a little bit and came back to it, which gave the horses a better look and a better chance to understand the question and where they were going. But at that point most people just decided to go for the two stride and avoid the issue altogether!
In dressage, each movement gets a score then all of the scores are added to get the overall score. If a rider messes up one movement but the rest are great, they can still earn a high overall score. In hunters, the overall ride and overall impression earn a single score (assuming the judge actually assigns numerical scores); one big mistake can knock someone out of the ribbons. These are completely different ways of judging so can’t really be compared like this.
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Judges hate to “lose their winner” because the best horse spooks at the funny fence or because some “bogey” aspect of the course causes the best horse to falter. No one wants to see the top horse out of the ribbons but I think that upper level hunters should be able to overcome different challenges.
Trainers need to work with their horses to simulate the challenges of the showring, it’s part of training the Derby hunter. Jumper riders do it, why can’t hunters? Eventers prove all the time that horses can learn to face down challenges. Instead, trainers say “we don’t ever want to see that question, or anything like it again, since my $500k horse stopped” and shows, not wanting to annoy their customers, comply.
This is what I call the “best horse” conundrum. What do you do with the horse who is clearly the best horse when he makes a mistake? Obviously, with a stop you have to go to 45 but what about the really hard peek? What about the wide eyed shoulder bulge or the funky lead change because of a disturbance outside the ring?
As far as the original topic, I’m not sure of a solution. I often announce at shows and as such have spent hours sitting beside judges as they work. Several have encouraged me to get my license. It’s just too expensive and time consuming for someone with a FT job outside horses.
At the elite levels there are only so many participants and they all know one another. When a big class is judged by a pro who has a long established buying/selling/client sharing relationship with a rider/trainer with 4 horses entered, one can’t help but wonder…
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I’ve been out of the loop due to injuries, surgeries, old age, and other things too depressing to mention. But now I’m back in with a very talented granddaughter. Things have apparently changed some since I was in the ring. Therefore I would like to echo BLBGP’s query about the bad behavior mentioned in Sissy’s article. Can anyone enlighten me?
Yes, I’ve actually competed through 3rd level.
The point is more, do we actually think this person did so well that they deserved 9s and 10’s in multiple other categories in order to make up for that? Because probably not.
With both sports, a judge can tweak numbers to get the results they want to give. You can never completely take bias out of the equation. Giving out a dressage style score sheet for hunters will not take bias out of the scores, so we shouldn’t look to do it for that reason. But it may make it so riders can see what they need to improve.
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One thing I do like about this is that it encourages riders to fix things during the test in dressage. I scribed at a small event yesterday and watched several riders pick up the wrong lead on their canter circle. Some fixed it right away and earned a 4/5 for the movement. But the ones who didn’t fix it and counter cantered around earned a 3/4 AND ALSO got a maximum of a 5 on the next movement because it was coming from the wrong lead. I’ve talked with my dressage trainer a few times about how sometimes it’s really worth it to make a big correction that’s limited to one movement on the test instead of trying to make small/ineffective corrections that bleed into several movements.
Meanwhile in hunters, if something goes awry you’re effectively forced to spend the rest of the round doing damage control to preserve the overall impression.
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Something I appreciate about the western horse world is the much greater scoring transparency than I experienced in my previous hunter/equitation life. For all classes that involve a pattern (horsemanship, reining, etc.), every horse enters the ring with a default score of 70. Each maneuver is scored from -1.5 to +1.5, with a “0” maneuver score indicating an average quality maneuver. There are separate penalty deductions for errors, such as late lead changes, breaks of gait, etc. Like hunters, the judging is still subjective, but the scoring framework is easier to understand and, in my experience, helps us exhibitors better understand what we did well and what we need to improve. At larger shows, scores are announced after each round. At smaller shows, they’re posted publicly after the class.
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My favorite part of this (my daughter switched from hunters and equitation to ranch riding and reining) is that you can see and photograph the score sheets from each judge. Usually each class is judged by 2 or more judges, so you can see how your maneuvers and scores plussed or minussed across judges, and also sometimes you see trends like certain judges marked everyone a little stricter and another maybe a little more generously, as you can see all their marks for the entire class.
Really useful to take this feedback and figure out what to work on (as opposed to fretting about the actual final score).
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Out of curiosity, why don’t they just give you the score sheets? In dressage, you take your score sheet home. For most shows, it’s just one judge, but if there are more judges, you get your sheet from each one.
I’m not a competitor in the hunters, but I have done very local level hunters, and have groomed at bigger hunter shows. I’ve often thought some kind of dressage-ish score sheet would be a nice addition to the sport. It doesn’t solve bias, but I do think it at least forces the judge to actually consider how each movement/jump was performed individually, which helps a bit, and as others have mentioned, it’s really helpful for learning.
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I suspect that at the bottom of all the judging-by-score resistance is this: The judge wants to have the final word on the order of the placings, and not just let the math determine the order of finish.
Because the judge does not want someone to win-by-math over others when the judge does have a definite opinion about which entry was truly the best overall quality, regardless of the math. If the judge isn’t confident that the math will give the judge’s preferred order (and that could be hard to manage in a large class), then they want a way to have the last word.
To some extent the non-mathematical opinion is why we have judges. Judges are supposed to have a deeply knowledgeable opinion that is valued by the competitors. Rather than just scoring a math test in a way that could be computer automated, if we have some advances in technology.
Different judges aren’t supposed to all produce the same outcome in a class (although it’s ok if they do), because different things are more important to each judge. The closer the mathematical scoring comes to being nearly the same from one judge to the next, the more that deeper insight is lost.
But competitors want to know how to improve. Scoring the elements of a ride offers a clear critique. We aren’t just guessing what was the difference between us and someone else. ‘Asking the judge’ isn’t always the best way because the judge may not even remember some individual rounds after the class.
And for those competitors who aren’t really riding for ribbons, then having a score to evaluate and improve on provides more purpose to showing up and doing the ride.
Many dressage competitors are riding against their own score sheet, really. I wonder if hunter-class score sheets would increase the interest of some riders in doing more hunter classes for the same reason – or not.
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We had a Derby mare spook sideways when a dog came out barking suddenly before resuming her round quietly and still went from the clear winner by a mile to like 5th. It sucked so badly!
This is why I roll my eyes when people whine about hunter riders wanting their trainer at the gate for their rounds. That’s where that feedback is going to come from. Your trainer SHOULD be able to see the finer points of your round and tell you what you could have done to place higher, and what needs to improve. That’s what you discuss when you come out of the ring, while you still remember how it felt, and they see the little things you don’t even know that you did or didn’t do. And of course in close company, some of it will come down to a judge’s preference, which is just part of it - you are paying for one person’s opinion of that round on a given day, relative to the others in the class. And if people got to see everyone else’s rounds, the placings would probably be less mysterious, absent a judge having a particular personal preference. I once placed higher than I was expecting in a group of about 20 low adults at a fairly competitive regional AA show, and my sister said “yeah but you didn’t see the rest of the class go . . . at least three people quit before they finished their rounds” 
She had watched the whole class and that provided a whole different perspective!
Scores are helpful, but they are also still subjective, and still may vary based on how big or competitive the show is or isn’t, and what type of quality the judge is expecting to see.
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No option for another opinion? Isn’t that what a judge is for?
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I didn’t say that at all. In fact my post specifically says “you are paying for one person’s opinion of that round on a given day, relative to the others in the class” ie, the judge’s opinion. I was observing that on this BB over the years we’ve seen a lot of people complain why can’t hunter people go in without their trainer (no matter how many times people explain it is not a “can’t” situation) and this thread highlights what should be the biggest benefit of having a trainer at the in gate, which is that you get instant feedback on what was good, what could be better, and what you need to go home and work on. Even if a judge scores every round, which I agree would be informative even though it’s unlikely to happen, it’s only going to give you a rough measuring stick/comparison point, it’s not going to give you the details of what could be better.
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The purpose of any mathematical grading scale is that the best will float to the top. If the mathematical rubric does not accurately ensure that that happens, then it means that it’s not a good rubric for the task at hand, not that a rubric shouldn’t be used at all.
And as has been mentioned in this thread previously, even in a numeric grading scale, it still leaves room for interpretation from the judge. Dressage has collective marks to judge the overall impression of the rider/horse.
At risk of sounding dismissive, this feels a bit like an overdramatic take. Effectively, it just points to the lack of trust that a scoresheet will adequately reflect the judge’s opinions - again, an issue with the scoresheet, not scoring itself. But 5 different dressage judges can still give 5 different scores. And I’d argue that if that “deeper insight” is changing that much from judge to judge, then I would say they’re probably not judging according to the standard for the class.
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