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2007 Global Dressage Forum
Judges make mistakes, too
 At this year's Equitana, the Xenophon society held a clinic that was
the ultimate in open scoring: In front of five thousand spectators, five
judges were spread around the arena in their usual positions and judged
a couple of riders doing tests, and later single exercises, from
M-dressage to Grand Prix. Each of them had to hold up a sign with the
score they had given for each exercise, and if there were discrepancies,
the judges whose opinions differed the most had to explain their
findings. It was fascinating, and it made you understand the factual
difficulties of judging (like judging from different angles). At the
same time, there could be no doubt that there is a strong individual
component to judging.
At the Global Dressage Forum, two judges who hadn't judged the test in
question in Turin and one who had, re-evaluated the findings of their
colleagues at the European Championships. A good half dozen movements
from the Grand Prix Special were shown on video, each as performed by
two different riders. The spectators and panel members were asked to
grade the movements, then the actual findings of the judges were discussed.
It was a somewhat futile exercise, because in hindsight it is easy to
be wiser. Still, it provided to be insightful as well.
Evaluating Isabell Werth's extended trot, moderator Stephen Clarke said
he'd have given it a nine even if the opening of the frame left a bit to
be desired, since here we had a rider who was willing to ride at full
risk. “I think it is the judges' fault”, he said, “that so many riders
are afraid to take risks anymore. Besides, I don't give the rider a nine
– I take away ten per cent from a ten, and those ten per cent are for
the somewhat tight neck.”
 Commenting on the twiching tail of Sunrise during another movement, a
half pass, he said that “when resistance is there, you can see it, and
this wasn't the case here, so to me, this is not so important.”
Another vivid discussion arose during the comparison of the piaffe and
consecutive transtion to passage of Balagur and Salinero. Anky got
straight eights for the piaffe and 8,9,9,7,8 for the transitions and
passage. Alexandra Korelova got four eights and a nine for the piaffe
and then 8,8,7,7,8. When asked to comment, Jean Bemelmans said he
disagreed because Korelova/Balagur's movement looked completely relaxed
and natural, whereas Salinero was clearly tense and didn't show a real
passage but only made a transition from piaffe to piaffe moving forward.
This, of course, hit the nail on the head and was met with evasion on
the side of the judges. Katrina Wüst agreed with the praise of Balagur's
natural performance said that she could recognize mechanical movement
when she saw it, and it was not the case here. There was a murmur of
agreement with Bemelmans' assessment of Salinero in the audience,
though, and some even thought that the horse moved like a puppet on
strings – not real comment on that part from any of the judges,
mechanical movement or no. (Likewise, nobody touched on the fact that it
was the Swiss judge who gave Silvia Ikle's highly uneven half pass an
eight, where as she got one seven and three sixes from the other judges).
So – it will be interesting to see if the FEI's judging handbook will
bring more clarity to this still muddy area – even if, as Stephen Clarke
stated, judges are humans, and make mistakes, too.
Text by Barbara Schnell - Text Copyrighted Eurodressage.com
Images copyrighted Barbara Schnell - No Reproduction allowed without explicit permission
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