Summer Music Festival - general consensus?

[Notimetoride]

I worked incredibly hard to qualify for this and sadly missed out qualifying by two places (judge at my last music test really slated us :-( )
But now having read feedback on FB pages it seems some people have been disappointed by the experience. Rosettes only to 6th place, no plaques, no BD presence etc etc. I'm starting to be not so disappointed now that we didn't go, especially as I reckon it would have been about a 4 hr trip one way for us ! I'm now wondering if the whole qualifying process is even fair ? If you live in an area where there are lots of music venues (sadly not my area) you could go out weekly competing (which would cost a fortune!) and get yourself quite high up on the leader board with fairly mediocre scores, equally someone gaining 75% each time would only need to compete a handful of times - and then those two people would be competing against each other at the championships ? I'm not sure how I now feel about the whole leaderboard thing ? I think I will give freestyle a miss next year - it was expensive, time consuming, and achieved very little. (Though I can't deny it, the music tests are quite fun )

 

[CoachinaCar]

Maybe you should not look at competing as to always be about qualifying for something. If it was fun to do why not just go out when you can and have fun. If you qualify great but if not so what, you had fun.

To me riding straight tests was serious and a test of our training and I liked to have a goal to qualify for something.

Music tests on the other hand I always thought of as putting on a performance. It was going out to enjoy it and for my own pleasure. It reminded me that competing should be fun and enjoyable and not always just to qualify.

I am sure the Summer music champs will get better each year as they grow in popularity.

 

[milliepops]

I think it's always difficult when you attend the first year a champs is run.

The natives/gypsy cobs was the same - there were things not ironed out, or made clear, there was chaos on the day and for some it left a bit of a bad taste (I remember one person in particular kicking off in a rather undignified way over a rule misunderstanding :eek3 also no plaques

I think it's clear there have been issues of timing with the results for both Bronze and music champs.. that will get sorted for next time - it will have to.

The thing about geography applies to all things you try to qualify for, I wanted to go to the welsh champs at PSG but didn't have any qualifying shows within a day's travel. I could have done some overnighters but chose not to. It also applies differently to different levels - round me, I could easily get to musics up to medium level but they are few and far between at AM +

So... on balance, I might consider having a crack at it for next year, now I have got some music my horse doesn't object to. I am sure BD will have lots of learning points from this weekend. I don't think I'll chase qualification, we will either get there or not - there are plenty of other things to aim at after all, but I expect they will make it easier for people to keep track of their position on the leaderboards which will help to make it clear how hard you need to try (or not bother!)

 

[Fuzzypuff]

I did the champs and did have a nice time. I have fed back on the downsides, but don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed it. I qualified through on 4 scores but appreciate that at lower levels it would have been harder to do that - definitely think it should be on 3 scores not 5. I came 4th so did get a rosette and it's the loveliest rosette I've ever won, even compared to Nationals. However, yes I was sad for those who came below 6th as they had qualified which is supposed to be in top 10 in the country and they didn't get anything to show for it as no plaques. I'm sure they will do something for this next year but do feel that BD should have supported with some extra budget to make sure everyone who qualified had something to take home. BD were apparently there but I don't think they were wearing anything to set them apart - I didn't realise they were there. All in I did have a nice time and hopefully it will go in future. Ultimately we fought hard to have a summer music champ to aim for and got this so that's great.