What is appropriate dressage judging?

Dear Judge, Do you like me?

I am sure all of us who show horses in a judged sport (hunters, dressage, dressage portion of eventing, etc) have complained about a judge a time or two. Two people will never agree completely, so it's normal to have moments where you disagree with how a judge scores something. The seeming subjective judgment of a stranger can quickly seem like an attack. Rising to the bait of such an implied attack is much too easy.

Thankfully, USDF dressage judging is held to a fairly objective standard. Once you know the standard against which you are being held, judges marks should make more sense. Comments are used to show where in you are lacking when compared against the objective standard and process of judging. Typically the comments focus on what the judge perceives as the biggest thing holding you back, and are fairly subjective in that way.

This brings us to the judging done at Loch Moy II in June. As I remarked in my post recapping my 4-1 ride, the scoring was inconsistent at best. The comments were often completely off base. Not only that, some comments were downright rude and inappropriate.

Entering the gauntlet can be mess with your mind, but if you know what you're up against it's easier to keep your cool.

Word about poor (or tough, which is very different!) judging spreads around a dressage show like wildfire. The scores were strange, some very low and inconsistent. By mid-morning of the show, there was a loud murmuring of dissent throughout the grounds and the show office was starting to run low on judge review forms. At this time, the judge was running a Materiale class. 

Materiale is a section of classes where young horses are judged on their potential to move up the levels and be competitive dressage horses. Similar to the YEH classes, they are really aimed at horses with upper level potential. The classes are run more like a hunter style flat class, with competitors riding as a group and instructions called out to the riders during the class. This particular Materiale class had only one competitor. It was a 5 year old horse, which meant the judge would need to see the walk, trot and canter in both directions. In addition she could ask for a trot and canter lengthening to be shown.

The class dragged on for what seemed like an incredible amount of time. Jan was in the warmup ring during this test, so I know the judge put the horse through it's paces for at least 10 minutes. When you consider my 4-1 test clocks in at around 6 minutes in the ring, a 10 minute evaluation of a 5 year old horse is serious overkill. Especially in the heat of the day.

At the end of the ride, the judge took the microphone to give the results and explain her commentary. She praised the quality of the young horse. Then she said something uncalled for, "The riding on this horse is so poor it detracts majorly from the quality of the horse."

"Hahaha. This judge is a bitch." -- Lyra, probably

I'm sure you could argue that this comment is in line with Materiale scoring, but no one on the grounds thought so. (According to the score sheet, "acceptance of the aids" is only a part of the 10% of the score anyway) Everyone stood around mouth agape at her audacity. At another point during the day, she rang an error for a rider doing an extended trot, telling her she hadn't done the movement and "would you like to repeat"?

This sort of commentary is unacceptable from a dressage judge. It is expected that your faults, shortcomings, and mistakes as a rider will be penalized appropriately in the scoring and comments, but not be called out in any other public manner. Riding a test is hard enough knowing you will be judged, but a rider should never have to worry the judge may drag their riding through the mud in front of everyone watching.

When it came to analyzing my own scoring, I began to doubt the judge knew how to evaluate a test properly. You can look over my write up yesterday to see where I had problems with her individual scores. Still, the scoring didn't really cross a line I felt was inappropriate until the judge got to the collectives at the end of the test.

Judge's name maybe not redacted on purpose. #warning

Under the comments for Submission (score: 4.0) she wrote, "Lacks collection altogether."

Wait. What?

Definitely not collected. Nope. Not in the slightest.... *eyeroll*

I won't argue that our collection game wasn't at its finest in this test. I've remarked already how Pig lacked a good half halt for most of the test. He was behind the hand and occasionally a bit behind the leg. None of those things make for stellar collection. However, he was not completely lacking!

Definitely not showing some collection. Nope. Nuh uh. No way.

The point of this post is not to try to justify or complain about my low score. I don't think I deserved much more than what I got on this test. Instead, I want to point out that dressage judging should be held to a the objective standard laid out, to maintain the integrity of the sport and confidence of the riders. I will take a 4 all day long for insufficient collection (which this was), but I do not think it's appropriate to indicate that nothing at all was shown as that is not accurate.

I'm not the only one to get such a comment, either.

"Show some ability to engage for collection"

Jan's second level test had a similar remark. Her test was the highest scoring second level test of the day, and yet the judge seemed to think she also lacked collection. I am sure our two tests were not the only ones with remarks like this.

Judging is a tough job. Training the human eye to see gaits quality with consistency across a multitude of horse shapes and sizes is nearly impossible. Still, most USEF judges nail it pretty accurately. One may be better at one aspect of judging than another, but typically they are fairly consistent when it comes to evaluating the overall picture.

Not an easy pair to judge.

Not only was this judge completely off base with other judges when it came to evaluating overall pictures of most pairs, she was quite inappropriate and unprofessional in her commentary. The comments on my collectives and overall scores on my test lead me to doubt her ability to evaluate for the levels. Additionally, her calling out of riders mistakes in a public fashion is unforgivable, in my opinion.

I'll be on the lookout for this judge at other shows. I rarely actively refuse to show in front of certain judges, but I think I'll be making an exception here. With all the complaint forms submitted to USDF from this show, I'm interested in seeing if her scoring and commenting changes at all. Hopefully it does, for the better.

Have you ever had a judge make inappropriate comments on your test? Do you find that having objective guidelines helps you have confidence when entering the ring? Discuss!