BD scoring question

AdorableAlice

AdorableAlice

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Over the years that we have been competing horses the rider score has always seemed to reflect the scoring of the horse. So with the horse averaging 7's or 8's across the whole test the rider mark has been 7 or 8. On the odd occasion a 9 has appeared.

This year we have seen a change and I would love to hear your thoughts on how the ride mark is decided upon.

On Thursday in Novice 30 and 34 our chestnut horse maintained a regular 7 to 7.5 with one 6. The ride mark was a 6. On Saturday and with a different horse doing intro the horse maintained 7.5 to 8. The ride mark was another 6. Yesterday with the chestnut horse again and not going quite so well as he did on Thursday, he scored a few 6's and nothing higher than a 7, the ride mark was an 8.

Last night we got out loads of old sheets from tests done at unaff riding club level right up to regionals and national champs and with horses from wobbly babies to a very successful horse all ridden by the same rider and dating back to the 1990's. There was never a ride mark lower than the mark the horse was scoring.

We never take a horse competing that would be unmannerly or difficult in the arena so a judge could not mark down the rider for being out of control, the rider is well balanced and well educated but after getting two 6's is doubting himself.

Over to you to demystify rider scoring for us. Thank you.
 
I thought the collectives had to be in line with the spread of scores, so I will be following with interest.

The rider wasn't inadvertently using voice, was he?

It doesn't sound as though he needs to doubt himself on the basis of past scores!
 
Difficult to know what to say given that none of us on here observed the tests.
Generally the collectives should reflect the test performed, this includes rider mark so I can see why you might question it. There may be a valid reason for this (there may not!). But in answer to your question I haven't heard anything myself come from BD about specific changes to rider marking.
 
shortstuff99 said:
Did they give any comments to go with the scores?
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Just the normal, chestnut horse is a boat so we get 'more engagement' etc needed. black horse is a baby carthorse with balance issues.

No voice used on chestnut, both days were outdoors and too windy for judge to hear from her windows up car. Black horse indoors and possible voice used. Comments on rider were both nice enough, chestnut horse comment was 'big horse' and black 'well ridden, obviously young horse'.

We are not going to stress over it, we do it for fun and are out tomorrow with the carthorse in his winter series riding club final, just looked the judge up and unlisted.
 
ihatework said:
Difficult to know what to say given that none of us on here observed the tests.
Generally the collectives should reflect the test performed, this includes rider mark so I can see why you might question it. There may be a valid reason for this (there may not!). But in answer to your question I haven't heard anything myself come from BD about specific changes to rider marking.
Click to expand...

Thank you, there are no thoughts on saying anything to anyone. It is all a bit of fun, and just something we noticed over this weekend.
 
There was a thread a little while back on exactly this point .
Horse scored well in the collectives and the rider was given a six .
 
I ran the shows at a dressage venue for 2 years (2014-2016), so spent a lot of time with judges and all of the ones we use were listed, even for our unaff comps.

Whenever they were discussing the rider score, it had no relation to the horse's collectives and was treated as a separate mark. I dont really have much knowledge of BD rules pre-2014, so I cant comment if this is a big change in the way they score - but the collectives for the horse, have to match fairly closely to the marks given during the test. This is because the marks during the test are for the horse, not for the rider.

Most judges I spoke to at my venue all said similar things about the riding mark, and commenting on riding throughout the test; they are not allowed to really. You could have a rider sawing at the horses mouth throughout the test, looking like they are knitting not riding - but they cannot comment, because they are not marking what the rider is doing during the test, they are marking what the horse is doing. If the horse is affected by the riders actions, they will comment on what is wrong with the horse (i.e. lack of engagement, needs to be more supple etc) rather than perhaps the fact that the rider is not asking for enough bend hence making the horse appear to be un-supple. Even if a rider is jabbing the horse in the mouth every other stride, providing the horse is actually moving forward freely and is fairly ignorant to being jabbed, it wont be technically affecting the horse's way of going hence the judge cannot mark the horse down for its rider's poor hands. But the judge can mark the rider down, in the collectives for their riding mark; that is the only mark that they can use to reflect what the rider was doing in the test.

So I always have seen this treated very separately from the rest of the test; the test and the first set of collectives reflect what the HORSE was doing throughout the test, the final collectives for riding reflect what the RIDER was doing during the test. So if the judge feels the rider's hands were not great and were a bit busy during the test (again it might not have affected the horse's way of going but the rider wasnt riding to a good/excellent standard) they may mark down but only for the riding mark, as that wasnt the horse's fault. Again if the judge feels the rider's aids were not particularly effective and the rider was at fault (i.e. not giving the correct aids rather than the horse ignoring them) then they would give a lower riding mark.

Dont forget a 6 means satisfactory; it doesnt mean there is a problem. If it was 5 or less then yes, time to worry and have a re-think about what the rider is doing. But 6 means you've done the job, there wasnt anything wrong with the riding and you completed the test in a satisfactory fashion.

I'd just put it down to that particular judge maybe being a bit fussy - perhaps with the chestnut based on the 'big horse' comment, perhaps the judge felt because the horse is so big maybe the rider wasnt particularly effective with the aids (is the rider fairly small?) and could have contributed towards more engagement with slightly better aids. And with the black horse, with it being a baby maybe it was all a bit wobbly; hard to get great riding marks on a wobbly baby as they dont make you look your best as a rider! Unless you are a tall bloke with very long legs, in which case makes it much easier to hold wobbly babies together!

As I said though, dont worry too much - there wasnt anything massively wrong with the riding as they gave a 6, so nothing to get hung up about.
 
I wrote for a judge at regionals and had a conversation about exactly this at the time.
She also judged para dressage and said exactly the same thing kc100 - you have to look at what the horse is doing during the test and score that, not the rider.
 
See I would disagree kc100.
There is a degree of correlation between rider mark and horse mark, both in the collectives and for test movements.
If a rider is sawing on the horses head then the horse is unlikely to be going in such a way that it scores a 7+
The paces not so much but impulsive and submission can be positively/negatively influenced by the rider.
 
ihatework said:
See I would disagree kc100.
There is a degree of correlation between rider mark and horse mark, both in the collectives and for test movements.
If a rider is sawing on the horses head then the horse is unlikely to be going in such a way that it scores a 7+
The paces not so much but impulsive and submission can be positively/negatively influenced by the rider.
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I totally agree - that was why I said unless it affects the horse's way of going, then they will mark the riding separately to the horse's movements. I've seen so many lovely obliging horses going along nicely (at low level DR thankfully) with their riders socking them in the mouth every other stride, and god love them the horse carried on without being affected by its rider. The submission remained the same, the impulsion and energy remained the same....the lovely horse continued in a nice rhythm ignoring its riders strong hands and just went where it was told to.

Now that is just one example of course (albeit I have seen that many times) - so hope I didnt cause any confusion - to clarify if the horse's way of going is affected by the riding, then the judge *should* have a correlation between the riding score and the horse's collectives.

However if the horse is a bit of a saint and is not affected by any poor riding going on, therefore it's way of going is not affected by the rider - then there is no reason for the judge to have to give a similar riding mark to the horse's movement.

Judges are told by BD to comment on the horse, not the rider - you can eventually learn the hidden meaning for the rider in plenty of comments from the judges - but they are not supposed to directly say 'hands too busy' or 'unsteady lower leg' etc. So the riding mark is the only opportunity to perhaps be a little harsher on the rider (after all its not the horse's fault) if the rider has been doing something less than desirable.

This particular example from the OP does sound fairly typical from my experience of lower level dressage - these sorts of problems tend not to occur when you get to Elementary/Medium, but with the Novice/Prelim horses it can be quite common for a horse with nice paces that is obedient to end up with a rider who is not riding particularly well but not doing anything hugely detrimental to the horse's way of going either; hence you get these slight variations between horse's collectives and the rider marks.

But to clarify I do 100% agree that if the riding is affecting the horse's way of going, then the judge should be marking the collectives as a whole rather than the rider mark separately.
 
Thank you so much for responding.

Rider is a happier bunny today, just done a test on baby black horse and got 8 and 7.5 on the riding marks. Thank the lord for that ! I cannot stand the pressure.
 
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