Who knows…
For those who want to compare versions
Compared to
The 2024 FEI Rules
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Just to avoid spreading misinformation, that section of the rulebook is not gone it’s been moved to a separate document solely focused on judging, the new FEI Dressage Judging Manual
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I don’t think everyone necessarily thinks everything that wins is “good dressage.” I don’t. I also think you can have both - you can do fundamental dressage training that can improve just about any horse and be applied to most disciplines without looking down on others or ridiculing them. There are sane, competent dressage riders out there that aren’t a horse’s arse.
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Well, I know you know that there are OTHER factors to go into a movements score.
The presence of tension is a modifier, not the basis of the score for the movement-
Yet it is so convenient to say that tension should automatically reduce the score to barely acceptable.
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From watching video of the GPS at this weekend’s CDI5* in Wellington, those were clearly the reasons why Frederic Wandres and Bluetooth OLD were placed first. They were head and shoulders above the other riders in all those qualities as well as in harmony. It was a pleasure to watch compared to the other rides - even though most showed moments of brilliance, they were marred here and there by tension, which resulted in a not stellar mark for the movement - say a 6.0 when it otherwise would have been a 7 or higher. And sometimes that tension caused actual mistakes, which caused even lower scores - I think I recall seeing a 4.5 and even a 2.5 although I don’t remember which pairs.
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Because TPTB want desperately to remain in the Olympics, and to do that, dressage has to become a spectator sport, and the average spectator (who knows next to nothing about horses) is going to be far more awed by a leg-flinging electrifying performance by a wild-eyed horse than by a calm and generous one who seems to offer the movements on its own. 
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Calvary training incorporated working in drill teams. Probably originated from medieval war horse training for battle charges, riders stirrup to stirrup. Horses as we all know find comfort being together. I read an excerpt from a diary of a calvary soldier in 1870 who said they spent 2-3 hours a day riding the drill patterns at the walk. Twelve to twenty horses in each drill set.
In our current equestrian sports, horses (with the exception of driving) are going into the ring alone.
Carriage driving can really set riding horses on edge!
We have a CDI on the east coast that is held in conjunction with a big hunter jumper horse show. The warmup for CDI ring is next to the outdoor stadium for the jumping horses. But I haven’t seen many FEI dressage horses really over-react to the jumping as they warm up.
In Wellington there are as many if not more golf carts than cars. And high energy horses by the thousands. Between Wellington and Loxahatchee there are 15,000 horses here for the winter.
The other huge factor in tension is the rider. The pressure in these big venues cannot be underestimated. Unlike the jumpers where top riders have a literal string of meter 50 horses, and can compete every week in the intense stadium with different horses,
dressage riders tend to have one GP horse, maybe if they are lucky a developing PSG horse as well. Rider mileage with crowds and pressure takes time to overcome.
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I know that is how the judges training teaches to judge. That doesn’t mean I approve of that guidance.
As far as I’m concerned, If the animal is tense, everything else is secondary. Relaxation is a foundation of dressage.
If GP is the pinnacle of dressage…which is supposed to mean “training”…then why are these horses blowing up and tense in these environments. To me, that implies there are major holes in the training.
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Link???
This is all I can find…which is nothing…it seems you have to apply (???) to buy the rulebook.
FEI Dressage Handbook - Guidelines for Judging | FEI
As far as spreading “misinformation”…Article 401 has been in the rulebook for at least 40 years…or at least since I have been riding. Article 401 is the foundation of what dressage is supposed to be. Kinda like the 1st Amendment in US Constitution.
Why not keep Article 401 verbiage in the rulebook…just add another article to present the new verbiage…Why not sunset that article number if they are going to radically change it?
I remember when the FEI changed the verbiage to “happy athlete”…yech.
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I didn’t give a link because I assumed you would be able to find it since it’s on the same page as the FEI rulebook you linked to above…
FEI Dressage rules page (3rd document): https://inside.fei.org/fei/disc/dressage/rules
Direct link to PDF document: https://inside.fei.org/sites/default/files/FEI%20Dressage%20Judging%20Manual%20-%20Effective%201%20January%202024_0.pdf
Article 401 is now Article 1. Your “1st Amendment” isn’t gone, it just looks like they rearranged and gave judging its own standalone document instead of lumping it together with how to organize/run a competition.
Edit: glancing at the 2022 version of the rulebook for comparison, they’ve elaborated quite a bit on judging and marks for certain mistakes so perhaps they felt it warranted its own document as it is quite lengthy now.
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Or as discussed above - major holes in the exposure of the horse to those kind of environments. And it is not necessarily easy for riders to take their horses to all kinds of venues to expose them to “stuff.” Many riders have jobs and families, pro riders may have barns to run and multiple client horses they need to spend time with - and whose owners maybe aren’t going to be willing to pay the costs or assume the risks associated with taking their horse for an outing to a parade or rodeo or jumping competition, etc.
I do agree that tension should not be rewarded with top scores - no matter how brilliant a mover the horse is - but as also mentioned above, tension is very often noted by judges via a lesser score for a movement. In watching video of the recent CDI5* GPS in Wellington, there were some horses that were WOW movers but they were tense - and they did not score as well as Wandres/Bluetooth, who turned in a lovely test of harmony, fluidity, relaxation, and accuracy, as well as lovely gaits. I would say the judges absolutely got it right in the placings for that class. I am going to try to watch the freestyle video sometime this week to see how the scoring went - hopefully the judges also got that one right and rewarded the combination with the overall nicest test.
One of the commentators in the GPS class made a comment something to the effect of - When judging, you want to be able to sit back and fold your arms across your chest and just watch a pleasurable ride without worrying about what might happen, instead of having to sit on the edge of your seat in high anxiety that “something” might happen. I would say that comment indicates a desire on the part of the judges to absolutely consider relaxation a key component of a test - although as we have seen time and again, there are certainly judges who value the wow movers much more than they value relaxation. And that tendency is much more evident in the highest echelon of international classes, esp. when big championships and national pride are on the line.
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Thank you. So call me technologically challenged…or mentally challenged. When an organization has a link to a document, I expect to click on the link and get the document. All I found was the page for an application to buy the judging guidance that I posted above.
I work with the office of a state’s office of the Attorney General and have input on drafting of revision to statutes. If there is a major revision, usually there are annotations addressing those changes, especially to the numbering system.
I just clicked on the link…they have this verbiage
“To be considered in connection with the FEI Dressage Rules”
Why not have a cross-reference in the Rule Book to refer to the new document…with a link to that document
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Ok…I have been perusing the Judging Manual link that @mombc24 gave
DRESSAGE JUDGING MANUAL (fei.org)
It has some interesting verbiage starting on p. 24 (of 68)…we will see if this guidance now changes judging.
The most important task for the Judge is to keep the Welfare of the Horse in mind. Therefore, he/she must pay special attention to all signs of discomfort and penalize them significantly - be it by deductions from the originally intended mark for minor mistakes or in case of serious mistakes by a ‘Firewall’, i.e. by a mark that shall not exceed five (5).
Severe, basic faults in rhythm, suppleness, contact, or lack of impulsion, straightness and collection must be clearly marked down.
Judges must pay special attention to all contact problems. A neck that is pulled together, an unsteady contact or a very busy, clearly open mouth with the tongue drawn up must be seen as fundamental mistakes.
Interestingly, the Piaffe judging guidance focuses/addresses mainly errors of moving forward (p. 37) but does not seem to mention anything about the “bouncing butts” (obviously on the forehand) we sometime see…yet in p. 3 that describes the Piaffe the document states
The hindquarters are lowered; the haunches with active hocks are well engaged, giving great freedom, lightness and mobility to the shoulders and forehand
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If the CDI venue you are talking about is the same one I’m thinking of, while jumpers next to the warm-up ring don’t cause huge problems for most of the horses, the warm-up jump ring which sits on the hill above the CDI ring CAN give some horses an “OMG” moment during the test as a horse appears and then disappears as it’s going over the jumps 
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Don’t you just hate that? I do.
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The FEI is a freak show. Freak Equestrian Incorporated
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It is more “management by committee”…since the rulebook and dressage judging are not internally consistent.
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First, I watched the Wandres/Bluetooth test… how lovely! Very little tension in that pair! The commentators mentioned several times that the horse is a seasoned competitor (and I think said he won at Welligton last year?)
As for me… on a very smurfy level, I have seen a number of dressage trainers in the area, had regular lessons on Feronia with 5 trainers over 14 years and on school horses with 2, showed Feronia lightly for about 4 years, done a few clinics, volunteered at the NEDA Fall Festival and other shows, etc. I haven’t seen much abusive riding or excessive whipping etc. The most common thing I’ve seen is a couple of trainers who would push a horse too fast, doing stuff with them that the horse wasn’t really fit enough to do yet. I’ve also experienced some pretty nasty interpersonal stuff with a trainer.
Like some others on this thread, I dislike how some dressage horses are kept and handled much more than how they are trained. Feronia is far from excellent at groundwork, and she’s not a deadhead, but in every dressage barn she’s been praised for how easy she is to handle. That’s on the work her breeders do with all their youngsters, mostly, but we’ve done groundwork clinics. I’ve seen too many dressage horses with atrocious ground manners.
We have great trainers, every bodywork modality you can think of, some really top-notch sporthorse vets, etc. But… there isn’t a lot of turnout at many barns, labor is expensive so some barns are short-staffed and cut corners, there are horses that are “too valuable” to ever be worked outside an indoor, taken on a short hack, or even turned out, etc. So there are a lot of horses with ulcers, stall vices, soft-tissue injuries etc. Keep in mind that full board without training is in the mid $1000s and up.
I haven’t fallen completely down the “forage, freedom, and friends” rabbithole, but my thinking about horse care is more and more in that direction, which would mean, if I bring Lola back from Michigan next year or get another horse, I’ll be looking further afield for boarding, and probably not at a dressage barn.
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so in agreement on how they are kept - same here, nice young trainers who are pretty riders but the horses are bubble wrapped to the point of smothering the poor things and then they wonder why the end up with suspensory issues and spooky, explosive horses. I do wonder if this leads to the training shortcuts when the owners get tired of paying bills on a horse that doesn’t win with the trainer and they are scared to ride themselves, and starts the slide done that slippery slope to abuse?
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