(“Where do you suppose his recruits were going to go anyway?”)

Wine mellows with age. So does cheese. It seems that dressage judges and clinicians tend to also. I can’t guarantee that this is not just a Baby Boomer and Gen X phenomenon, but looking back it did seem to apply to the generation that preceded mine—the Violet Hopkins, Mike Matthews, Max Gahwyler contingent. I can’t honestly say that Max or Mike were stern taskmasters when they were younger, but I have heard the stories about Vi. Someone who rode with her back about the time I was born told me that when a student made what Vi thought was a serious mistake, she would take the riding whip and rap her pupil sharply across the knuckles the way schoolmarms used to brandish their wooden rulers. Forty years later, Vi was handing out 80% scores like confetti at a Mardi Gras parade.

I can think of a whole raft of luminaries from (more or less) my generation whose teaching and judging has softened considerably. Back about 30 years ago one of them had actually given a rider a 10% score at a recognized show. That judge is practically a creampuff now. Another one was known for losing her temper around mid afternoon during every clinic she gave. A student would ask me, “Shall I go ride with _____?” And I would reply with some hesitation, “Well, she knows a lot, but just don’t let yourself get scheduled for the 3 o’clock ride. By then she gets frustrated enough that she always makes that rider cry.” That clinician is now beloved by dozens and dozens of children and young riders. Do you suppose she has changed?

Eighty years ago a cavalry instructor could be gruff, even harsh. c When the cavalries disbanded and these guys had to earn a living in the free market, many of them learned to modify their delivery. Then along came the prototypical instructor of the ‘60s to ‘80s, George Morris. He was so successful and his attentions so sought after that he could afford to create a survival of the fittest mentality among his students. The ones who could not absorb his barbs simply fell by the wayside.

We like to think dressage inhabits a kinder, gentler world where being rough with the students is no more acceptable than being rough with the horses. And we recognize that to deny them their self-respect is to break the compact you make when you are a professional.

This must apply to judges as well. While it’s true that the judge must protect the horses and the Art, I still hear too many tales of a judge saying “you need to get a real horse” or “why don’t you give up?” or “you’re never going to get this.” Fortunately such remarks come from a small minority of judges, but if delivered the way they’ve been described to me, they have no place coming out of a judge’s mouth.

On occasion, I have had to write at the bottom of a test or say to a rider, “Your horse doesn’t seem to be ready to perform the movements required at this level.”

Once in a great while it’s been necessary for me to reprimand a rider who has lost her temper or treated her horse improperly in the arena or in the warm-up. But those are rare exceptions, and I mean to have the riders I teach or judge feel that I’m “on their side” and hoping they can arrive at their best possible outcomes.

Once I attended a judges’ forum where the presenter showed us some video of a fairly hapless third level amateur rider. He observed that he could not understand why she even bothered to enter such a horse. My reaction: yes, it was not very good. She did not have a grasp of the quality of movement, balance, and acceptance needed to perform the test she was trying to do. But I was equally disappointed in that presenter’s attitude. He seemed to be affronted that he should have to look at such a ride. I, on the other hand, can remember back nearly 40 years to when I presented my totally inadequate riding to Col. Ljungquist at Gladstone. He could have dismissed me in that same manner, but instead he went out of his way to help me understand the ideas I was missing. I owe him one. That’s the only way reasonably that I (or any professional) should act in turn.