(“The benign one at least wasn’t digging him into a hole!”)
You may not think about this very much. And, honestly, you would have no reason to. However . . . I was judging an Arabian dressage show not long ago, and my assignment included doing the sport horse under saddle classes. They are so different from judging regular dressage! When you agree to sit at C, you implicitly endorse a set of standards and a common methodology to arrive at your score for each movement. There will be individual differences but relatively small ones. And the cumulative scores when compared to one other produce the winner.
Under saddle classes don’t work like that. Now we’re talking blatantly subjective judgments! On paper (btw) the judging criteria read as follows: “manners, performance, conformation, suitability as a sport horse, and quality.” Judges follow them but which factors most influence any particular judge’s conclusions are often only discernible by the results.
At this particular show while I went about pinning my own preferences, a second judge in the same ring watching the same performances independently pinned hers—two “separate” shows (for the price of two) but nonetheless doubling the opportunity for points. Oh, those Arab people!
The classes were all relatively small—never more than seven in the group—which left plenty of time to thoughtfully slot each horse into its deserved placing.
If you’re lucky, one horse will be head and shoulders better than the others, but even so, sorting out the rest of a class at a local show can still get really complicated! It’s often less about who’s better and more about who screwed up least.
In one class (3 entries) the best horse was clear to me, but I had to give out red and yellow ribbons as well. One choice was a very un-sport horse-like creature (a refugee from the Park Division?)— neck crammed high and tight, broken behind the poll, “obedient” but anxious and thoroughly miserable. The other choice was not as nice as the very first one but fairly pleasing . . . until it missed a lead.
“Okay, maybe I will just overlook that one miscue,” I thought. Then it missed the lead again. Do I reward the one I hate over the more desirable horse who made the mistakes? My conscience told me I had to.
In sport horse you’re supposed to reward what you see, not just what you imagine could be under different circumstances. In other words, while potential does count, you have to judge the performance which unfolds in front of you. Another class: only two in this one–one ridden helplessly but passively, the other being shown actively to the detriment of the horse’s mental and physical balance. It’s not okay to say to yourself “I don’t like how this one is going, but if I were on him I could fix him in a minute. Therefore he wins.” Paraphrasing the addendum to the Hippocratic oath, the rider’s first duty is to do no harm. That said, the actively transgressing rider had just Edward Scissorhands-ed her horse out of a placing. Neither rider was doing her horse a favor, but the benign one at least wasn’t digging him into a hole!
Another Arabian Sporthorse oddity: there exist “hunter types”and “dressage types.” They are supposed to be evaluated respecting their own standards and purpose even when thrown together in the same class. Dog show judges, of course, make these decisions all the time. Is Dog A a better German Short Hair Pointer than Dog B is a better Cocker Spaniel? At the Arab show we had exactly one hunter type SH competing against the dressage ones. This one, reminiscent of an off the track TB, appeared terminally on the forehand and looked like it had swallowed a cavaletti pole.
Had she moved or carried herself better, I could’ve placed her above some of the other horses, but I was in no way blown away by her charms. Would I want to go down to a fence on this horse’s canter? Not bloody likely!
In all these assorted classes I comfortably placed them in an order that made sense to me and which I could justify. Where it became interesting was each time the horses lined up to receive their ribbons. (Remember, this was two shows happening simultaneously.) The judge for the Region 12 show had her results announced. Then the whole ceremony was repeated with my placings of the same horses but in this case representing Region 15. Our opinions ran parallel sometimes. Other times they diverged widely. Widely! In any case, it wasn’t as though one of us was right and one wrong. We just happened to weigh the flaws we saw differently. The other judge, for instance, seems far more enthralled with that hunter type than I was. Go figure!
As hills of beans go or as to divining why which gin joint (she) had to walk into, pinning sport horses is small potatoes. But you should join me sometime. It’s an amusing exercise.