Dressage - think the judge watched a different test!

Paint Me Proud

Paint Me Proud

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Went to do a couple of prelim tests at an equstrian centre today and had an interesting experience.

First test, prelim 7 went okay, then after a short wait for a replacement judge (original judge stuck in traffic) we went in for prelim 14.

So scores came in and I had a 62% for prelim 7 and 52.7% for prelim 14. Was happy with the 62% but thought the 52.7% was a bit harsh.

Collected my score sheet and OMG i think the prelim 14 judge was watching a different test to the one i rode! The test calls for two instances of trot to walk for one horses length then back to trot, and also for a give and retake of reins in trot. All three of these movements I did during my test, i remember them clearly as i counted the walk strides in my head and was worried out my give and retake but it was fine so i was happy.
However, on my score sheet i had 4's for all three movements with the comments 'No walk steps seen' and 'No give and retake'.

What?! I 100% did these movements, simply cant understand why the judge thinks i didnt.

To make things even more bizarre my friend also did the same two tests on her horse and her prelim 14 scors and comments were eyebrow raising. She was awareded a 7 for her right canter when horse was on the wrong leg the whole time, spooked at A and reversed half way back down the arena and then missed out the complete top end of the arena on the way back round. How on earth does that score a 7?!

There were several other perculiar scores and comments on both of our prelim 14 sheets and another young competitor also told us she had had the no give and retake comment when she did also do it (mother who was watching her confirmed).

Very strange, and although it was a dissapointing we did have a really good laugh about it all it was so absurd.

Anyone else ever had anything like this happen?
 
Were the walk steps absolutely clear, or a bit tense and joggy?
Was there a clear loop in your reins or did your horse follow them?

If you absolutely did them absolutely correctly and you are certain, pass it off as a bad judge (perhaps mention it to organiser if the wrong lead wasn't picked up too). If you are not sure, yes it was prob a bit harsh but could be a clue that you are not doing them as well as you think :)
 
I've had it before where I've done a very big and definite give and re take which has then been marked down as 'not shown'. It was shown as the horse locked onto the fencing at the end and i wet myself! Dressage for you!
 
Meh - as long as you were pleased with how your horse went then just put it down to harsh judging - we do do it to be judged, and to be given someones opinion on that day!
 
Had it happen a couple of times out at unaffiliated. Put it down both times to people going out of order and the writer not noticing and following the start list.

One time I had entered my young horse for a couple of unaffiliated prelims but he was a bit under the weather so I took another horse HC rather than lose the entry fee. Given that he was scoring 68+ at BD novice I was rather shocked to get the score sheet back for one test which was 78% and then for the test that he felt much better got 54.5% and comments that in no way related to the test. There had been a kerfuffle with people going out of order and someone nipped in when it was my time.
 
I think in those circumstances I would contact the centre (with your friend too) and mention the judging was a bit odd that day - not for the quality of the movements etc but just that they existed! I'm sure they would rather know as organisers. (I might see if the judge was listed too ;) ).
 
Somebody I know videod her son's test. Judge said the pony broke from canter. No sign of it on the video. I do think that sometimes they must mix up the numbers. Not in the classes I'm writing for of course!
 
Batgirl said:
Were the walk steps absolutely clear, or a bit tense and joggy?
Was there a clear loop in your reins or did your horse follow them?
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Yes we defo had walk steps, i counted them as we did them. I also did the give and retake just as my instructor (dressage rider) had told me to. They werent perfect I admit but was a bit irked that she had said i simply hadnt done them :(

I love to get the judges opinion so i know what to work on and give me an idea of how what i rode looked like from the sidelines but I also like to feel asthough the judge was actually paying attention, lol :D

It wont put me off going out to dressage again (my least favourite discipline) but will avoid that judge in future.
 
I think you're quite local to me- do you mind me asking where you went today and if you happen to know the judges name... (Pm if you'd prefer!)
Just because something VERY similar happened to me last weekend, on a horse who had won with 78% at a BD competition not too long ago, then got awful marks in an unaffiliated with remarks that didn't add up whatsoever to the test we did- things like "overshot centre line", "hollow in canter" and "needs to accept the contact"- I had total strangers come up to me and say "I just wanted to say what a pleasure your test was to watch", so we were very confused with our low score! Just wondered if it happened to be same venue/judge!
 
I've had 0s for walks not shown and get either a 4 or an 8 for our give and retake- all with photos as evidence I did do them! I think judges must sometimes forget to watch those moves?!?
 
We had a giggle at a PC Intermediate event this summer where the test required a give and retake of the inside rein over the centre line on a 20m canter circle.

My daughter and another girl (they came 2nd and 1st respectively) both got marked down for this movement because they "showed G&R with one rein only"......

- hey ho!!
 
andij253 said:
We had a giggle at a PC Intermediate event this summer where the test required a give and retake of the inside rein over the centre line on a 20m canter circle.

My daughter and another girl (they came 2nd and 1st respectively) both got marked down for this movement because they "showed G&R with one rein only"......

- hey ho!!
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LOL! Glad it's not just us then! :D

Just checked and the judge is BD registered but only on list 6, so I would imaging not too experienced perhaps
 
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eggs said:
Given that he was scoring 68+ at BD novice I was rather shocked to get the score sheet back for one test which was 78% and then for the test that he felt much better got 54.5% and comments that in no way related to the test. There had been a kerfuffle with people going out of order and someone nipped in when it was my time.
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I bet the other competitor got a nice surprise that day:D
 
BroadfordQueen said:
I think you're quite local to me- do you mind me asking where you went today and if you happen to know the judges name... (Pm if you'd prefer!)
Just because something VERY similar happened to me last weekend, on a horse who had won with 78% at a BD competition not too long ago, then got awful marks in an unaffiliated with remarks that didn't add up whatsoever to the test we did- things like "overshot centre line", "hollow in canter" and "needs to accept the contact"- I had total strangers come up to me and say "I just wanted to say what a pleasure your test was to watch", so we were very confused with our low score! Just wondered if it happened to be same venue/judge!
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I think you guys are v local to us to, please can you PM me judge & centre (wrote for a bit of a random class atvthe weekend)
 
I'm presuming this was unaffiliated rather than a BD competition....if so the quality of judging you get can vary massively at unaffiliated and often they may have just roped someone in who may have done a bit of dressage 10 years ago to judge (rather than a BD listed judge), so in this case I wouldnt worry too much about it.

The angle of where the judge is sat vs the position you are when doing movements like give and retake of the reins can sometimes have a part to play - I'm a steward/show secretary at a dressage venue and I often read tests for competitors standing in the corner of the indoor where we have the tests. The judge at C is in a box and when the G&R is down the long side with the horse coming towards them I often notice they dont see it as they mark 'G&R not shown' when I saw them do it whilst reading the test but I was at a different vantage point at the corner next to M (I can see it from the side). So that could be part of the reason, you know you did a G&R and it may have been visible from the side but perhaps it wasnt big enough for the judge to see when sat at C.

Does sound very poor if the judge didnt spot your friend's horse was on the wrong leg and gave it a 7, that is pretty shocking judging as if the rider doesnt correct the wrong leg strike off then you'd get a mark within the range of 1-4. If you correct it you might get 4-6 depending on how generous the judge is feeling and the quality of the rest of the movement included in that particular mark.

As I said before though, write it off as a poor judge but be aware this can happen at unaffiliated competitions when they dont use BD listed judges. You can find a full list of BD judges on the BD website if you are ever in doubt and want to check.
 
Paint Me Proud said:
However, on my score sheet i had 4's for all three movements with the comments 'No walk steps seen' and 'No give and retake'.

What?! I 100% did these movements, simply cant understand why the judge thinks I didn't.
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Paint Me Proud said:
They werent perfect I admit but was a bit irked that she had said i simply hadnt done them :(
.
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I dont have the test to hand, are these movements marked alone? or part of a sequence. If part of a sequence then yes it is very annoying that you may have dropped marks for an otherwise good sequence as a result of the judge thinking you hadn't performed part of it.

If they are marked as a stand alone movement, then if you knew they weren't good, maybe her comments are not matched to the 4? Surely if you just didn't perform them she would have gave you a zero. An "insufficient" at 4 could well be that she did see you attempt it, just that in her opinion it wasn't sufficient enough.

Either way, take from it a a determination rather than being put off by it. There will always be these discrepancies from time to time. Maybe rope someone into videoing for you, its really nice to watch it at home later.
 
alainax said:
I dont have the test to hand, are these movements marked alone? or part of a sequence. If part of a sequence then yes it is very annoying that you may have dropped marks for an otherwise good sequence as a result of the judge thinking you hadn't performed part of it.

If they are marked as a stand alone movement, then if you knew they weren't good, maybe her comments are not matched to the 4? Surely if you just didn't perform them she would have gave you a zero. An "insufficient" at 4 could well be that she did see you attempt it, just that in her opinion it wasn't sufficient enough.

Either way, take from it a a determination rather than being put off by it. There will always be these discrepancies from time to time. Maybe rope someone into videoing for you, its really nice to watch it at home later.
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The walks are stand alone and the give and retake is part of a trot circle. You can see why i'm confused as yes a 0 would have matched with her thinking i hadnt done it but why give a 4 then say it wasnt seen. Baffled.

Oh well, i'm chalking it up to experience and filing it under 'amusing annecdotes' for future reference! :D
 
A similar thing happened to me once. Share horse and I normally get high 60s - low 70s at prelim. Did a test and everybody watching (including those competing against me, so not biased!) told me it the best test they'd ever seen us do. I felt it had been a really good test too. We got 48%. I'm convinced it wasn't my test - apart from anything he was quite fresh that day (very unusual) and did one of his rare happy bucks going into canter and he jogged in his free walk - there was no mention of them at all - he even got an 8 for the walk! The only comment on our sheet was "behind leg". Even on a lazy day he's off my leg nicely, just maybe not very expressive, but that day he certainly was!

I then did the same test with my thug horse, which consisted of "A enter at working trot, X nap, spin and leg it to door". He got a good talking to and we carried on with the rest of my test but it was very tense. Even scoring a 1 for my entry (which I agreed with completely) we scored 52%. I'm still baffled by it to this day.
 
my favourite was while I was pregnant I took 2 of my horses (1 17hh chestnut with no white on him anywhere and 1 16.1hh much heavier chestnut with 4 striking white socks and a big blaze) to a local show

1 friend rode the 17hh in a working hunter class while the second friend rode the 16.1 in a dressage test
In the second w/H class the first friend rode the 16.1 - the judge at the end said to my friend who'd been in both classes - "obviously I've given you the same marks for confirmation "

NOT obvious to us as she was riding a completely different horse with totally different confirmation - the judge had watched them all go round then an individual show and jumping and not spotted that the horse had shrunk, put on weight and been painted white all over between classes

I honestly laugh about that one a lot still and it was years ago!
 
I was at an AFFILIATED comp a few years ago with a friend and I was behind the judges car ready to watch my friend do her test. The rider before my friend had a bit of a mess where she lost her way with one of the movements and didn't show it at all. I was absolutely shocked when the judge got out of the car at the end of the test and asked the rider whether she completed the second canter element because she "wasn't paying attention"!!!! (Which was the bit that was messed up and not shown at all!) Rider obviously confirmed she did everything right (!) and ended up winning the class! Needless to say we haven't been back to that venue since...
 
Sometimes you have to wonder what judges are up to!

I once got muddled in a test and didn't do the right leg yield, just skipped the movement, I didn't notice, the judge didn't notice so I finished the test. Afterwards I realised, looked at the video and confirmed I had missed it out completely...I got a 6 for the left leg yield and a 7 for the second one which apparently was 'much better'! I tried to talk to the judge about it but she blanked me as she assumed I was complaining about my marks!
 
Anyone who does dressage should go and write for a judge occasionally. Not only will you learn a lot about what the judge is looking for in the tests, you will realise how hard it can be at time to mark and keep up with the movements.
 
Gloi said:
Anyone who does dressage should go and write for a judge occasionally. Not only will you learn a lot about what the judge is looking for in the tests, you will realise how hard it can be at time to mark and keep up with the movements.
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I agree! It can be quite manic in the judges box and things can be missed. Different judges often have particular things that they like to see which can alter marks slightly. Having said that, I rode the same test over two weekends at different venues. I won the first with 68% and the following weekend came last with 53%. As it turned out, second judge wasn't BD qualified/registered so I'm choosing to ignore that score 😉
 
Not really in keeping with the thread title but...... we did an unaffiliated dressage on the 16th and 29th (yesterday) same test, same venue, same judge - even had the same time and same bridle number!! My lovely mum video's both tests, we try and video everything the baby horse does.
on the 16th I came 3rd, yesterday I came 2nd to last!
Yesterday test was far more settled and grown up, the test on the 16th was wild!!

I watched both video's then showed my mum both video's and asked which one was which - she got it wrong.
The point i'm trying to make is, it the better it feels, the worse mark you get - well not quite but that is what it feels like for us at the moment.

My sheets are .5 of a mark different and I would have said the quality of horse and rider on the 16th was far higher than yesterday.
Ho hum, its all a big game for us, we just enjoy ourselves and take the positives away with us.
 
I have spent today writing for a judge. A unaffiliated show, with an excellent judge, who is very experienced. We were judging/ writing for SIX HOURS with two ten minute breaks, by the time we got to the second novice my hand was having cramps and I could no longer spell impulsion, the judge made at least two minor errors which I would never dream of correcting, neither of which would have mattered in the long run. Mistakes do happen, I can see why they happen but it's horrid when it's you it happens to. I got Marked down for not showing walk in a movement when the video clearly shows walk. The judge said my horses tail was to thick and blocked her seeing the walk. :D


EditEd to add I also made a couple odd errors the judge did correct, I am not saying I'm prefect!!!
 
Just to keep this thread rolling... I know someone who had a judge hop out of the car during the test! She has a lovely pro tog photo as she lengthened across the diagonal, and in the background is the judge getting out of the car!! Would love to have known the excuse. I think we've all had those tests where we believe the judge wasn't watching. I do think it can be attributed to sheets getting mixed up!!
 
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