(“Standing in front of Monet’s Haystacks, a given person might prefer it to Van Gogh’s Starry Night.”)

By now you’ve probably seen the video of Charlotte Dujardin’s winning freestyle at the 2015 World Cup. If not: http://youtu.be/4uIPhE1vLCw.

If you have a brain in your head, you’ll agree that it was quite magnificent. A happy horse appearing to respond willingly and effortlessly, in harmony, yet with great power—what more can you ask for?

In all activities—not only in sports—there’s a human tendency to think that whatever we are experiencing now is better than anything that’s ever gone before. In golf, the flavor of the month, Justin Spieth must be better than Bobby Jones or Ben Hogan because they’re “back when” and he’s today. Same thing in tennis – who the hell was Rod Laver? We’ve got Djokovic! The last category I can think of where “older equaled better” was in robber barons. In that case we clearly just don’t build them like we used to!

All I’m saying about Valegro’s ride is don’t read too much into the score. It was beautiful. But 15 or 20 years ago it would’ve gotten 84%, not 94. Has the judging become less stodgy? Have they’ve finally decided that there’s no reason to hold back? [I recall a judges forum at which Linda Zang was asked if she had ever given a 10 for a collected walk. “No,” she said, “but I know what I want it to look like.”] It seems to me that now the judges are either trying to prove a point (which they’ve been instructed to prove) or they just get collectively giddy.

[I remember back in the mid-70s critics arguing “why is it that in gymnastics and figure skating and diving judges will award perfect tens to the best performances in international competition, but in Olympic dressage the best in the world can only score three quarters of perfection?”] Nowadays on the Artistic side in particular the inherent subjectivity of it (and new found boosterism) can get judges piling on the plaudits as though they’re holding up their cards on The Voice or passing out free ammo samples at an NRA convention.

Face it, when going in you know that if judges are willing to give Artistic scores that are near perfection—9.5s and 10s, if you can muster up a solid mid-80s on the technical side, your overall score will be firmly in the 90s.

I wonder if at some point when looking at the Artistic side in Big Time Competition judges are being asked to parse the unparsable. In the international realm where Grand Prix music and choreography costs each rider tens of thousands of dollars (if not more), there aren’t any bad ones! Furthermore, nobody gets a 58 on the Technical side and a 98 on the Artistic side. What the judges “award” on the right-hand side of the sheet is just too closely related to what the horse does technically.

On homemade freestyles and at local shows you’ll often see comments on the Artistic side that read “background music,” “predictable test-like patterns,” or even a more politely-worded “bores the hell out of me.” I am wagering those remarks didn’t appear on anyone’s test sheet at the World Cup.

I further observe that in the world of art if you go to the National Gallery and stand in front of Monet’s Haystacks, a given person might prefer it to Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Another might choose Munch’s The Scream, someone else likes a da Vinci or a Michelangelo or even a Warhol. The point is, People, they are all artworks. They are masterpieces. If one observer or another wants to score a particular painting 0.5 higher or lower, let them. No one else should care. It’s all ART, and despite what crowd sourced Listmania and Listverse would try to convince you, no one else’s opinion should matter but that of each viewer and then only to him or herself.

So back to the topic of World Cup Freestyles—Let’s take the Artistic side out of the hands of the dressage politicians, at the same time maintain the current level of scores, and allow the judges to concentrate on qualities that are at least remotely quantifiable, namely the technical aspects. Above a certain level let’s decree the Artistic side to be pass/fail. Give all the World Cup riders a 100% on their Artistic side and average it with whatever Technical points they garner. If the judges feel they are ceding too much control of the outcome, let them have one modifier which can be called Did It Work?

I have written before about our society’s need to anoint someone “The Best” (in almost every endeavor). In downhill ski racing the winner’s time may be as little as a hundredth or several thousandths of a second better than “the losers.” Were it not for stop action cameras and high-tech laser timers, we would be stuck agreeing that they were tied. That notion doesn’t play so well in the corporate board rooms where they’re trying to sell TV ad time or jerseys or sponsored aftershave. Somebody’s got to win.

If I admit that it doesn’t matter to me, I know I am drifting out of the mainstream. Thirty years ago a counselor asked me what was my goal in life? I said, “I want to be on The Today Show.” He smiled slightly and said, “Once I was on The Today Show. It didn’t change my life at all.”