From the judge's booth

I had the opportunity to judge a little schooling show back in August. A friend of mine from college has her own farm in Ohio and asked me to come judge. It was an easy 2 hour trip and lovely weather.

The show was filled with all types - from kids on pony packers, to those giving their green horses some experience, to a few pairs at Second and Third level. The majority was Intro and Training Level tests. I have to say, judging really gives one a who new perspective on showing. Not once was I bored, in fact I really enjoyed the job and have started to give more thought into the L program for dressage.

That said, judges do have a difficult job. They can only judge what is in front of them at that moment in time. Sometimes they make mistakes too. (I called one girl off course when in fact she was not. Geez. She handled it well though). There was only one "complaint" that come from a parent who's kid scored lower than someone else's kid and that was "the first time that had ever happened." They wanted a reason, and by that time I did not even remember which pony was which!

Anyway!

There were a couple of specific movements that stood out as a theme for the day on "Where People Throw Away the Most Points."

#1: FREE WALK. I can probably count on one hand the number of pairs that had a somewhat decent free walk all day. Sooooo many lost points here. I understand that sometimes it just does not happen (horse is nervous, rider nervous, etc). But at least make an effort. Show that you are trying. At the very least march forward. This movement can be so easy, but you do need to work on it at home. It's easy points and it killed me to have to keep giving 5s. You do not need to have a fancy, upper level, expensive warmblood to nail the free walk. ANY horse can do it.

#2: HALTS. I am the first one to admit I do not work on halts enough. A square halt doesn't happen all that often for me. That is a detail I need to work on. However, all horses can halt. Again, this is a "non brilliant" movement. All your horse has to do is stop, and stand still. If he is not square, then fine, you can probably still pull off a 6 - possibly a 7 if he is close enough to square and the judge can't really see that well at C. But if you halt, and your horse steps backward, or steps to the side, or jigs, or never actually stands still - well then you are going to get a 4 or 5 at best. Teach your horse to STOP and NOT MOVE HIS FEET. That's a good place to start.

A couple of other things I noticed:

When your horse is naughty - smile! I mean, what are you going to do? First, smiling will relax you and frankly it gave a better impression if you just smiled and kept on going, than those who got angry or frustrated and started getting after their horses. It's ok to be firm, but don't get angry.

Use of voice during your test is a -2 error. The judge can hear you cluck and say "good girl" even when you are down at A. I was not too strict about this since it was just a schooling show, but something to keep in mind.

Also, if you are scribing - try not to fall asleep during a test.

Please, and thank you!

And if you ever have the opportunity to judge, or scribe, do so!

(I've included some links to a few helpful books. Mostly I am just testing out links to Amazon.com, but do feel free to click and buy if you should desire!)