shortstuff99
Well-Known Member
Hope that doesn't include my picture as that horse in that picture was at a long format 3DE which she completed on her dressage score so yes was extremely fit.
Fat horses
- Thread starter Wishfilly
- Start date
Annagain
Well-Known Member
I was placed second in a veteran horse class to a very fat cob. He was beautifully schooled, his rider clearly did a lot of showing and executed a lovely show. My boy and I were doing it for the first time and were definitely a bit rough around the edges so I didn't have a problem with that. What I did object to was being told by the judge that my horse moved beautifully, was spot on in terms of muscle and condition, an excellent example of his type (he was shown as a hunter type), clearly very well looked after and a lovely boy. Literally not one bad word. This was 30 seconds after she told the cob's owner he was obese, it was affecting his movement and she desperately needed to get weight off him. Yet she still placed him above us!
This class was for a national society and they have a strict marking system. They provide score sheets and when I went to pick mine up, the cob's was still there. He'd beaten us by one point - his show was marked three points higher than us but his condition and movement was 4 points lower. The difference came in the history. She had given him 2 points more for 'history' even though he'd done very little (hacking and a bit of showing) and my boy had done BE, BS, been placed at BRC championships and was now taking a 12 year old to pony club. It was clear she wanted the cob to come first - which is fine, that's her prerogative but even doing that she had to mark him down on condition and up on something else that nobody could really question.
This class was for a national society and they have a strict marking system. They provide score sheets and when I went to pick mine up, the cob's was still there. He'd beaten us by one point - his show was marked three points higher than us but his condition and movement was 4 points lower. The difference came in the history. She had given him 2 points more for 'history' even though he'd done very little (hacking and a bit of showing) and my boy had done BE, BS, been placed at BRC championships and was now taking a 12 year old to pony club. It was clear she wanted the cob to come first - which is fine, that's her prerogative but even doing that she had to mark him down on condition and up on something else that nobody could really question.