Evaluation Vetting Marks v Evaluators Marks

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Thefuture

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What is interesting unless you are at the venue you now have no idea when looking at the scores how the final result has come about.

As a breeder in the southwest I viewed the scores with interest at Tall Trees and The Grange and IMO the evaluators still do not fully take the vets score into account bringing horses with scores below the threshold for a first premium into the first premium bracket which is for horses supposed to be able to go to the very top!

The vet is the person who will know which issues will or will not effect a horse in the future as they are the ones which deal with the resulting problems/injuries as the horse get older. IMO just because a young horse can show excellent use of its limbs is balanced and has a bold outlook cannot override a poorer veterinary mark.

Does anyone know why the full scores cannot be accessed after the day of the evaluation as again being a breeder it would be good to see the split on the results for stallions one might be interested in using!
 
This has always been a problem from the start and you are right about the Vet. mark. The valuation i attended the Vet was very critical of horses that were in the vets opinion overweight and was complimentary about horses in good condition that were not carrying excess weight. The evaluators did not seem to be useing the same standards of critical judgement. We must appreciate that evaluators at major German gradings have 25 years experience and see 3000 horses in a 2 month period and this knowledge base will take time to build up.
 
I believe that publishing all the scores would infringe upon privacy laws and data protection as they are the property of the horse's owner and up to them to make public. It is along the same lines as someone publishing all the results of each scores in a dressage test.
 
i have now been to 4 different evaluations and have to say that at one of the evaluations i took what the vet said with a pinch of salt after my experince. All of the others so far the vet has been great, and the evaluators have agreed with what the vet has said. I had two horses at said evaluation and after the first one got a lower than expected vet score i thought there was no hope for the other as by my own admission he wasnt 100% level, i knew what was wrong with him, and it was nothing sinister but it should have been picked up by the vet. I nearly didnt take him but as we were talikng the lorry anyway and he had never been off the yard i decided the experience of the day would be good for him. just to make it clear, he was not lame, just not 100%. Well you can imagine my surprise when the vet found no fault with my colt. So off i toddled into the evaluation in sheer shock. The evaluators thankfully did pick up the fact that he wasnt quite level and marked accordingly so from my experience the evaluators do know what they are looking for and in this case picked up what the vet had not. hey also pointed out that my fillys low vet score stoped her from getting the premium she deserved.
 
I totally disagree. Look how many horses are at International level with not the best of conformation, and would very likely be picked up by a vet!

Look at the World Ranking Number 1 Stallion - Jazz. This stallion is toed out, however if you speak to some of the Dutch graders they say if the KWPN had thrown this stallion out as a young horse due to his conformation then they would never of had the dynasty of horses worldwide they have now. Let alone the World Number 1 Dressage Breeding Stallion!! Look at his son Westpoint - Verden Champion, never mind Parcival, who just won at Windsor this week!

Hangb you speak about the German graders, but one just has to look at the conformational faults in Don Frederico to see that poor conformation does not always rate high on their radar. If you go on one of the orientation days by the Hanoverian Verband, you will be shown that very correct conformation is not the be all and end all, and that sometimes, as a judge, you look beyond some aspects if you think the horse has qualities in other areas, that supersede the slight weaker points.

That is just some of the dressage stallions, never mind the showjumping ones. One KWPN jumping stallion is very well known for throwing sickle hocked foals, but he is an amazing jumper and his offspring are doing well in sport, so the mare owners will just use a mare that is slightly straighter through the back leg on him to compensate.

Obviously if a horse has a major conformational problem or deviation, then this will be noted, and it would likely have problems making high level sport, but never say never, because it does happen a lot.

If anyone can find the PERFECT horse conformationally wise, then I will hand them a £10, because they don’t exist!

Maybe too many people have rose tinted spectacles on when it comes to their own horses or stallions, and cannot accept when somebody points out that another horse is better, even if it may have slight conformational defects.

I also think if you brought continental judges over that you would see your marks diminish very quickly (to get a mark of 9 out of 10 on the continent would be no mean feat at all), as I bet your bottom dollar they would not score you so high! Then people would be screaming that there were no Elites, and a lower amount of 1st Premiums!
 
i am not sure what you are disagreeing with nomis. You make some very valid points but i am not sure what your opening statement refers to.
 
My experience was the other way round, the vet described one of mine as having perfect conformation with a mark of 9.5 but the evaluators did not agree giving a much lower mark!

You are always going to get differences of opinion but I think that perhaps that the scheme might benefit from a seminar of evaluators and vets before judging starts each year to try and establish a standard across the board and a better understanding of each others roles and how to look ahead to potential especially with foals and yearlings.

We have all seen examples of equine athletes that perform exceptionally despite the handicap of obvious defects, however you have to think how much better would that horse have been without those and do you really want several generations of horses with that same defect?

I think that we should be striving towards producing horses without burdens to their performance and welcome this kind of constructive criticism and advice, which if given young enough has the power to minimise the impact of or even reverse defects.

It gives breeders valuable information on their stock and the parents of those animals, and we should really all be striving to produce the perfect horse if we fall short using this method it will be a higher standard and more durable an individual than if we had thrown caution to the wind and bred from performers with poor conformation hoping to get what would really be their attitude alone.
 
We had a positive experience. The vet Jane Nixon gave ours a 9.75 and actually consulted her husband (think it was Stuart Hastie) to confirm her thoughts. The filly then got excellent marks from the evaluators and got 2 elite premiums.
Last year when we took a foal she pointed out some mild epiphisytis and advised on feeding etc, so her advise was invaluable.
Some do go to these evaluations with an unrealistic opinion of their horses.At one venue there was a 3 yr old (entire) with poor conformation, didn't inspire with it's jump which quite rightly got a 2nd premium and the owners were astounded and angry but it didn't deserve any better.
 
Memo, a horse with poor conformation and jump, shouldnt even be getting a 2nd premium IMHO.

I agree with nomis that I think the scores for all horses are generous. A 9 on the continent is an incredibly great score and yet a lot of youngsters presented have been awarded scores of 9 or better.

I do find the vets feedback very useful and think the format of using the vet's advise etc is better this year. In past years I have been confused by vet's scores of say 8 with no comments as it would appear anything lower than 9.5 say means there is an issue the vet has picked up. I am sure the team at the BEF will continue to tweak the format and improve it.
 
The biggest thing that confused me was with our 2 yearlings...both got 1st Premiums so am not complaining about the overall score...however the vet mark did confuse us.....

One yearling got an 8.0 and his comments were that he has slightly offset cannons and slightly wingy front feet. All things we knew ourselves and are traits of his dam's so no problem with that.

THEN the next yearling came on. He got an 8.2 and yet he had no comments. The vet looked at him and said he was as near perfect as you could expect a yearling to be and that there were absolutely no confo faults or issues that needed dealing with.

Now, to me when he said that we instantly thought that that would at least then been a 9 or higher if he was as perfect as he said and yet he only scored .2 higher than the one that had a couple of irregularities......how does that work??
 
You are right maybe it shouldn't have got a 2nd premium. It's conformation wasn't great (neck not set on right etc). It may have made someone a nice competition horse up to a certain level. IMO it definately wasn't good enough to keep entire and was amazed that the owners/ handlers who looked professional thought it deserved a 1st or more.
 
[ QUOTE ]
What is interesting unless you are at the venue you now have no idea when looking at the scores how the final result has come about.

As a breeder in the southwest I viewed the scores with interest at Tall Trees and The Grange and IMO the evaluators still do not fully take the vets score into account bringing horses with scores below the threshold for a first premium into the first premium bracket which is for horses supposed to be able to go to the very top!

The vet is the person who will know which issues will or will not effect a horse in the future as they are the ones which deal with the resulting problems/injuries as the horse get older. IMO just because a young horse can show excellent use of its limbs is balanced and has a bold outlook cannot override a poorer veterinary mark.

Does anyone know why the full scores cannot be accessed after the day of the evaluation as again being a breeder it would be good to see the split on the results for stallions one might be interested in using!

[/ QUOTE ]



so your saying then that a horse presented for the vet that may have been pulled down on a minor issue eg slight inward toe but has an elite jump isnt going to go to become an olympic horse???? As i have a book with Pippa Funnels Supreme Rock in and his conformation shows a turned in leg quite badly!!!!1
 
I emailed the BEF about getting a full and detailed score, and nobody replied. The full rundown of marks were up at the Futurity, but I didn't have time or enough paper to copy them all down! Surely we should be able to access them after the event, even if its only for our own youngsters. I don't see why there should be an issue with privacy as they are always up at the event. Mine weren't up when I left Keysoe, and I wanted to get the foals home as they had been away from home for a long time.
 
I thought that, in the past, the marks had been made public, as in published on the Internet. I am sure I have read and looked at these in previous years?
 
We were at Fountain with our 2 year old and we got our sheet back with the comments and marks on it.

I believed this was standard practice as everyone was getting a copy of their written sheet, if they asked which obviously we did.

You're right the information on all of the presented horses/ponies was on the wall but to be honest, I was only interested in how my horse got on. Got 2 First Premiums BTW so chuffed.

J
x
 
I have to confess to being a little disappointed, Jane Nixon gave my three yo 9 as a vet score and she was awarded a second premium, (0.04 off of a first) but she'd scored higher than the majority of first premiums, in fact there were Elites on lower vet scores..........
 
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