Karen Robinson Has Some Comments About Anky, Judges, and Cees Sling

[Mike Matson]

Olympic freestyle designer Karen Robinson is never one to hold back. Here are some excerpts from her latest blog. Note the responses on her blog from the Cees Sling team. :eek:

http://www.horse-canada.com/?p=2037

Quote:I have just recently (this morning in fact) been apprised of the tremendous judging gaff that occurred at the WC qualifier in Mechelen, when Anky rode Painted Black not to her freestyle music, but to what she stated afterward was a ‘practice’ version of her Tango freestyle. I had read previously that she used the wrong music, but I had no idea how bad it was.

Quote:Not only was she cantering to trot music and passaging to canter music, but there were some amazing mismatches between music transitions and choreography. The ride from halt to halt was about 25 seconds over the time limit, too. I can’t tell for sure if the judges penalized her for being overtime – but the 80-plus artistic scores suggest not. Those scores also indicate that the judges gave their artistic marks based on what they know she usually scores for that freestyle, rather than the performance itself.

Quote:You too can watch this disheartening evidence that some judges either don’t actually give marks for what is in front of their eyes, or that they make no effort to understand the basic principles of evaluating the artistic elements of freestyles. Sadder still is the probability that both of those factors were at play here.

http://www.paardensport.nu/vid.....nk-22.html (http://www.paardensport.nu/vid.....nk-22.html)

Quote:Since creating freestyles that won gold medals and World Cup titles galore, Cees Slings and Victor Kerkhoff have gone their separate ways. I’m not sure what Victor’s up to these days, but Cees is up to something that I find utterly baffling and totally dangerous. He is designing an electronic gizmo that will tell judges everything they need to know about whether the freestyle they are watching is artistically meritorious. It is called EQ-Musync and is, according to the creator himself, “a new complete measuring instrument for Freestyle dressage. It will wipe away all ‘gray areas’ of adjudication: subjectivity versus objectivity; relation to musical taste; lack of knowledge of music and rhythm and evaluation of syncronicity. All these unquantifiables disappear with EQ-Musync.” He compares his machine to the Hawk Eye system that is used in tennis. Excuse me Mr. Slings. This isn’t tennis we’re talking about here. There is no artistic impression involved in calling the ball ‘out’. I have a whole bunch of questions for you, but here are three of them:

Quote:Will your monster machine take note of the use of transitions within a piece of music to highlight a specific movement, such as a softer phrase for a piaffe or a pirouette, and stronger music for extensions and tempi changes? Will it tell the judges that the horse took the first step of a new gait right at the moment the music changed for that new gait? This is called interpretation – just in case you forgot, it’s on the score sheet.

Quote:Will the diabolical instrument inform the judges (who will now presumably almost not be needed at all) when the style of music or instrumentation enhances the horse’s natural expression and way of moving? It’s not just matching the footfalls you know. That’s the easy part but the right music doesn’t start and end there. You might even call this a ‘gray area’.

Quote:Will the dressage judge decapitator tell the judges when the performance gave goosebumps? Or when the horse and rider rose beyond what they did in the technical test the previous day, thanks to choreography that highlighted the horse’s strengths and music that put the rider in an emotional place that gave him or her the riding moment of a lifetime?

Quote:How can you reduce the assessment of a musical performance to a string of beeps, lights and numbered results (I can’t erase the mental image of C-3PO judging freestyles of the future) so that judges don’t have to know a thing about a large proportion of the scores that will put Olympic medals around necks? And, more importantly, why do you want to? Please tell me you were joking.

[BaroquePony]

Hhhmmm, sounds like the dressage world now has its very own Mad Scientist :yes:

[slc2]

If there WAS a technology that aided in evaluating judging, why would it be 'diabolical'? That sounds just a wee bit too Mary Shelley-ish.

Perhaps the wrong music was played due to some administrative screw up, so that's why the scoring went as it did. Anky said she brought the wrong music, maybe that's not quite what went on. Even if so, it would be a little weird to zero score down a ride that was very strong technically, it would raise accusations that the freestyle was just a 'music contest', and even if she did pick up the wrong tape, it's just a little bit creepy to scream, 'why wasn't she punished more' like some AANP (Anti Anky Nazi Party).

OFTEN, (especially when we lose, LOL) we patiently explain to others that 'we go to the show to get the judge's opinion, it's just an opinion' and yet, whenever a winner wins, there must have been some conspiracy.

Why WOULD the judges have Anky win if the performance was so horrible, the music so off, and everything else?

Well, according to what so many people say right on this bulletin board, over and over and over, and have said, for YEARS....that was their opinion of who should win.

Perhaps everyone's going a little bonkers; it was my impression the 'freestyle judging machine' was an extremely sarcastic tongue in cheek joke, based on the idea that too many people are criticizing the judges so incredibly loudly.

Note too, there is no mention of this 'machine' at the patent office or anywhere else except in that comment he made; in fact, wouldn't one really have a hard time conceiving of any technological device that would actually DO everything listed, and isn't there a bit of a similarity between everything the machine would do and the specific problems people are complaining about going on in freestyle judging?

It would be possible to come up with something that analyzed the video and calculated the beats per second of the gait, and matched that with the beats per second of the music, but since there isn't a completely slavish adherence to a march tempo any more, that is a very small part of the judging. It would be possible to come up with a comparison analysis of other judge's scores of the same freestyle, but a real statistical analysis is not possible with just a few scores per rider/horse/freestyle; it also assumes a 'correct' score is the same as the 'average score' when the average is of a very, very small set of data, and that the horse performed exactly the same every time and deserved exactly the same score, which is even creepier than the chest beating about why didn't someone get a lower score.

It's a very, very weird dichotomy to hear people patiently explaining to others that 'dressage is a subjective sport' and then beating their chests that we have to have some technical analysis of that 'subjective' judging to 'validate' it, and THEN!!!! having a heart attack when someone says they are going to do just that, LOL!!!!!!

[Ellie K]

Isn't this the same woman who made Alex McLin FEI vice president and awarded Haya a law degree all the while demonstrating impossible naïveté as she pretended to give the world the "inside scoop" how MW went down? :lol:

[slc2]

Why in fact it is!:lol:

[freestyle2music]

Isn't this the same woman who made Alex McLin FEI vice president and awarded Haya a law degree all the while demonstrating impossible naïveté as she pretended to give the world the "inside scoop" how MW went down? :lol:

Why do you think she choose Mike Matson as her marketing manager ;):cool:

[Fixerupper]

Whoa - back up one step, people - do we really want 'computers' judging dressage any more than we want 'judges' judging dressage?

[Mike Matson]

Why do you think she choose Mike Matson as her marketing manager ;):cool:


Theo, have your manager contact me and we'll get you and Karen together for lunch. :cool:

[freestyle2music]

Theo, have your manager contact me and we'll get you and Karen together for lunch. :cool:

Sorry Mike, Lunch is for my friends only.

But I fully understand your dedication to Karin Roberts, because at least she has an opinion. Comprende ?

Why don't you ever have something to say about the mud throwing party going on at http://www.horse-canada.com/?p=2037

You always told me that you were a noted memeber of the USDF Freestyle committee. So take you chance ! and speak out loud !

Theo

[Mike Matson]

Why don't you ever have something to say about the mud throwing party going on at http://www.horse-canada.com/?p=2037

Theo, I did mention the "mud throwing party" - in my OP. :yes:

Sorry you and Karen won't be getting together for lunch. You two would have made beautiful music together. ;)

[freestyle2music]

Theo, I did mention the "mud throwing party" - in my OP. :yes:

Sorry you and Karen won't be getting together for lunch. You two would have made beautiful music together. ;)

Ending in the same situation like Cees Slings and Victor Kerckhof. Victor did the work and Cees was getting the credits. ;)

[Romany]

If there WAS a technology that aided in evaluating judging, why would it be 'diabolical'? That sounds just a wee bit too Mary Shelley-ish.

Less Mary Shelley, and more Jonathan Swift, I hope!

[freestyle2music]

I just went to this BLOG posted in the OP, and saw my name mentioned.

I am very proud that in almost every discussion of this kind
my name pops up.

The thing I don't like however is the fact that the most credits of Anky's freestyle music goes to Slings while the musical brain behind this all was Victor.

The next thing that worries me is that Slings use judges to make the choreography for his clients.

And last but not least that it's seems now that the girl (Anky) who feeded him and his family for years is bashed by him and his team over and over again.

More to come !

Theo

[sm]

More to come !

yupper, the circus is back in town :rolleyes:

[Equibrit]

It would appear that the judges need the Slings gizmo.

[freestyle2music]

It seems that a whole new Era has started. We have had the Era in which trainers were bashing each other, an Era where the riders did bash each other. An now we are entering the Era in which musicmakers start bashing each other, but these MM also have started bashing the judges and riders.

I have stated this hundred times before, what are we talking about ????

At the right side of the scoresheet we have :

Choice of music and interpretation of the music :

Interpretation of the music is a horse and rider thing, so we as POOR musicmakers can only be a part of the choice of music. Next to this the FEI in all her wisdom has decided that "a poor score on the technical part of the ride can never lead to a high score on the artistical part" .

The redline is that the MM (including myself) are a minor part of the total score. But for some reason the MM (including myself) are acting if they/we/me can make champions and medal winners.

Theo

[sm]

It seems that a whole new Era has started...

On another note it's interesting to me what Klimke would have done, if the wrong music was brought. Or Kizamov. Would he be able to improvise to better suit the music actually being played? This *news* demonstrates how much the horse is drilled every movement today, no adaptability at all -- not even to end on time with the music. I've heard it say they are drilled like robots, but never took it literally...

Different eras of dressage brings different skills. I'm remembering Alherich's impromtu tempis on the victory gallop and Klimke just relaxed and going with the moment http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbLXpW5-DG0 Talk about different eras!

[Stick]

Excuse me Theo, but what are you talking about of being a MM (musicmaker)?
Your very "famous" (not at all dear COTH readers!) with your (very old and bad) 'cut and paste" tricks of all sorts of music, not yours, not composed, not arranged and not produced by you; so 'stick' (haha) to what you are, a poor tragical freestyle compiler with a lot of comments on original composers who, showing off in all your quotes, seem not to be your friends.

Do you have any friends anyhow, dear Theo? Did you ever 'composed, arranged and produced one piece of original music and can you show it to us, the COTH readers? Put it on your website, old chap, and tell us what it is, what it was made for and what you and the rider scored with it. Please Theo, just to proof?

Till now your only spitting a lot of dirt on MM's -Cess Sling seems to be your favourite one, why??- (your not one of them so let's forget the phrase 'other MM's') but what's your point anyway? Do the COTH forum readers know that your not that person you pretend to be, and that any big tour in Europe has to do without you and that none of the top International riders in Europe know who you are? Your banned a lot of times from the COTH forums, and from many other International websites, because you feel proud that your name pop's up at every discussion dear Theo, but your like Mr Bean: if you sent yourself many Christmas cards you will feel happy about such an amount of attention; Theo, your pathetic, and your talking a lot of crap.

Ah, isn't about time, dear Theo that we tell the COTH readers, how the Dutch dressage World looks at you?
If you don't, we will, count on it! To speak your lingo: more to come, get the popcorn and get ready Theo!!

On every reply you post, we will inform the COTH readers about the real facts, so be prepared Theo!

The Hunk, alias Stick

[sm]

meanwhile, back at the ranch:

canyonoak has begun work authoring another thread, "Public Apology to Theo, Part II"

[slc2]

So Stick, what exactly brings you to COH?

LOL.

[Bogey2]

excellent.....I will be right back with my popcorn and beer!:winkgrin:

[Mike Matson]

Guess I'll be checking the CotH each hour now. :cool:

[Fantastic]

I smell the blood of . . . .mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. KAREN! Stick smells like Karen! It that you, Karen?

[freestyle2music]

Excuse me Theo, but what are you talking about of being a MM (musicmaker)?
Your very "famous" (not at all dear COTH readers!) with your (very old and bad) 'cut and paste" tricks of all sorts of music, not yours, not composed, not arranged and not produced by you; so 'stick' (haha) to what you are, a poor tragical freestyle compiler with a lot of comments on original composers who, showing off in all your quotes, seem not to be your friends.

Do you have any friends anyhow, dear Theo? Did you ever 'composed, arranged and produced one piece of original music and can you show it to us, the COTH readers? Put it on your website, old chap, and tell us what it is, what it was made for and what you and the rider scored with it. Please Theo, just to proof?

Till now your only spitting a lot of dirt on MM's -Cess Sling seems to be your favourite one, why??- (your not one of them so let's forget the phrase 'other MM's') but what's your point anyway? Do the COTH forum readers know that your not that person you pretend to be, and that any big tour in Europe has to do without you and that none of the top International riders in Europe know who you are? Your banned a lot of times from the COTH forums, and from many other International websites, because you feel proud that your name pop's up at every discussion dear Theo, but your like Mr Bean: if you sent yourself many Christmas cards you will feel happy about such an amount of attention; Theo, your pathetic, and your talking a lot of crap.

Ah, isn't about time, dear Theo that we tell the COTH readers, how the Dutch dressage World looks at you?
If you don't, we will, count on it! To speak your lingo: more to come, get the popcorn and get ready Theo!!

On every reply you post, we will inform the COTH readers about the real facts, so be prepared Theo!

The Hunk, alias Stick

Hi Cees,

Just to inform you :

Manchester United - Inter Miland 2-0
Liverpool - Real Madrid 4-0
Barcelona - Lyon 5-2

Theo

[canyonoak]

<< meanwhile, back at the ranch:

canyonoak has begun work authoring another thread, "Public Apology to Theo, Part II" >>

LOL-- but I am most assuredly not the one who is going to have to create an apology.

ANd somehow, I think the person who does need to do this needs no help to put words on a page.

Ahem.

nevertheless-- this is definitely more fun than another saddle/bridle/boot thread. At least, for me.

[Mike Matson]

There's only one way to settle this! :yes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joDjwtjIQS8&feature=related

[freestyle2music]

But at least the Dutch baseball team shocked the baseball world beating the favourite team from the DR twice and getting to the next round.

And to answer Mike Matson's question; Maybee when Anky hear about the price-money she might trade Reining for Baseball.:D


@ Slings

Give us some answers

How many Olympic Freestyle's did you make ?, And why did the Dutch riders had enough of you.
Why was Victor invited to Anky's "This is my life" party and not you. Why your frustration about the fact that Anky and Sjef decided for the Song Song Blue music during Sydney. Why did you send me an Email (one of the many) and told me that Sjef didn't like the music of Wibi Soerjardi and was begging you to start working for them again. Cees, grow up and concentrate on your work with your Eqmusync Gizzmo.

Ohhh before I forget did you already solve the problem with that backwards passage. <lol>

And to answer your question I have over 500 of our musicproductions on my website, and you ?
www.slings.nl .





Theo

[slc2]

Somehow, I just find two freestyle sellers trading catty insults and namecalling on a horse bulletin board to be a crashing boor.

[egontoast]

Somehow, I just find two freestyle sellers trading catty insults and namecalling on a horse bulletin board to be a crashing boor.


Takes one to know one:lol:

[CatOnLap]

:yes: :lol:

[slc2]

Awfully clever, but I still don't find a catfight between these two to be quite as delicious as other virtual teenyboppers do - it doesn't exactly make either of them look too hot in public, it's not a real hot recommendation for either.

[egontoast]

Awfully clever, but I still don't find a catfight between these two to be quite as delicious as other virtual teenyboppers do - it doesn't exactly make either of them look too hot in public, it's not a real hot recommendation for either. Mar. 12, 2009 10:23 AM

yeah, yeah, I know, you prefer to crap on the Gronka, the Olivera, and The Russian guy in the leather jacket in a much more sophisticated catty teenager manner.

Guess you'll be taking your Intro freestyle business elsewhere. :)

[Peace]

Excuse me Theo, but what are you talking about of being a MM (musicmaker)?
Your very "famous" (not at all dear COTH readers!) with your (very old and bad) 'cut and paste" tricks of all sorts of music, not yours, not composed, not arranged and not produced by you; so 'stick' (haha) to what you are, a poor tragical freestyle compiler with a lot of comments on original composers who, showing off in all your quotes, seem not to be your friends.

Do you have any friends anyhow, dear Theo? Did you ever 'composed, arranged and produced one piece of original music and can you show it to us, the COTH readers? Put it on your website, old chap, and tell us what it is, what it was made for and what you and the rider scored with it. Please Theo, just to proof?

Till now your only spitting a lot of dirt on MM's -Cess Sling seems to be your favourite one, why??- (your not one of them so let's forget the phrase 'other MM's') but what's your point anyway? Do the COTH forum readers know that your not that person you pretend to be, and that any big tour in Europe has to do without you and that none of the top International riders in Europe know who you are? Your banned a lot of times from the COTH forums, and from many other International websites, because you feel proud that your name pop's up at every discussion dear Theo, but your like Mr Bean: if you sent yourself many Christmas cards you will feel happy about such an amount of attention; Theo, your pathetic, and your talking a lot of crap.

Ah, isn't about time, dear Theo that we tell the COTH readers, how the Dutch dressage World looks at you?
If you don't, we will, count on it! To speak your lingo: more to come, get the popcorn and get ready Theo!!

On every reply you post, we will inform the COTH readers about the real facts, so be prepared Theo!

The Hunk, alias Stick

Wow this seems a bit harsh:confused:

[merrygoround]

My my! A Hunky Stick!! What next??? :eek: