(“Schooling shows may be conducted slightly differently.”)

You may already know this, but since the question came up recently, let me lay it out for you. At recognized shows the judge’s behavior, by rule, custom, and protocol, is fairly rigidly defined. There are conflict of interest rules. The judge may not discuss the horse’s performance with his rider until after his classes are over. The rider must seek show management permission to consult the judge. Once the test has begun, the judge does not address the rider. The test proceeds to its conclusion unless the judge must correct an error of course or stops the horse for lameness or evidence of blood.

c. Management and judge will conform to most conventions to help riders understand what they should expect at a recognized show: You can’t ride in draw reins. You can’t use your voice without penalty. You can’t make extra circles without incurring an error.

Beyond this, the judge is not only permitted but sometimes encouraged to speak to the riders after their tests. Sometimes management will schedule loosely to give the judge an extra minute or two to discuss a test after it’s over.

If I notice a rider who had an obvious problem in her first test coming back to ride a second time when I know she has not had time to look over my comments from the first one, I may give her a quick synopsis of my remarks before I ring the bell for her second ride. Why have her make the same mistake twice just because her rides are scheduled 20 minutes apart? This falls under the category of the schooling show judge’s prerogative, likewise does pausing the test or permitting the re-ride of a movement if it has been interrupted by a major external distraction.

While I do the following only infrequently, if a rider in her test is making some egregious mistake — using her voice repeatedly because she doesn’t know the rule or if she’s riding the horse in an abysmal but readily correctable way, I would prefer to stop her and tell her. It’s supposed to be a learning situation after all. Why sit there for six minutes giving the hapless rider a long string of fours only for her to find out at the scoreboard two hours later what could have turned her whole day around?

Summing it up, within certain limitations which are circumscribed by the rules and show management, at a schooling competition the show arena is the judge’s private fiefdom to manage in the best way he sees fit.