Over the past couple of years, one of the most debated problems in the world of hunters and equitation has been the art of judging.

Those of us who sit in the judge’s booth know that it’s a lot harder than it looks, especially if you take pride in doing a good job. Judging takes patience, endurance, and the ability to quickly prioritize and separate mistakes in the process of determining the outcome of the class. Whether it’s a flat class or a jumping class, you have very little time, especially when numerical scoring is used, to debate the merits of the competitors.

As a judge, you have to know in your own mind and heart what a winning performance looks like and the components that come together to produce this event. And that’s why education is where we need to concentrate the most–for our currently licensed officials, potential judges, competitors, parents and audiences.

I’m always interested in the responses I receive about my Between Rounds columns. And one column I wrote last year, giving my opinion on numerical judging (June 18, 2004, p. 30), showed me that many of the participants in our sport do understand what defines quality and performance and how they’re related. But some participants do not, including some lifelong professionals. These are people we need to reach and educate.

Many people have commented that other sports have designated scores and deductions for each movement within a performance, and they wonder why this isn’t possible with hunter and equitation judging? Well, it is possible to a degree.

As judges, we all pretty much agree on the range of scores for refusals, breaking stride, rails down, and other obvious mistakes. Where the real difficulty comes is the gray areas, such as a late lead change or a horse showing expression by playing in the turns.

People often use ice skating as an example of how hunters and equitation should be scored. So I’ve really started to think about how ice skating scoring relates to scoring hunters and equitation, and it’s closer than most would think. In skating the competitor receives two scores–a score for execution of the movements (performance) and a score for artistic interpretation (quality). In the hunter and equitation rings, these two elements result in a single score.

I believe we can develop a guideline range of deductions for both major and minor faults, guidelines that will still allow for some subjectivity and won’t turn our officials into scorekeepers.

There has to be some flexibility in the ranges as each judge will see something different, and, let’s face facts, a missed change for one step is not as serious as a missed change for four steps.

And we must keep in mind that no two judges will see exactly the same performance, even sitting side by side during the same class. One may look down to mark their card and miss two steps of a late change, while the other judge saw four steps. If you think it won’t happen to you, you’re dead wrong–it happens to all of us. You have to mark your card at some point, and for that instant you could easily miss something that an observer from the rail didn’t.

You can only judge what you see, though. No one, and no system, can be absolutely perfect. It’s just so easy to criticize the judging if you don’t understand the human element and think the judges should see absolutely everything that happens in the ring.

For some people that’s an easy way out of admitting that their performance just wasn’t as good as the rest of the class. Maybe it was their best performance ever, but everyone else was still better.

I can already hear some people saying, “If the judge can’t see every little thing happening in the ring, then get a scribe, like in dressage.”

Well, that’s a nice thought, but who’ll train your scribe in how you mark your card? If we had scribes, would it mean that everyone would have to use the same symbols and descriptions? That’s not likely to happen as hunter and equitation judges and participants are a very opinionated group of people.

What’s more likely to occur is that we’ll be able to redesign our judging system, from the ground up.

I was asked earlier this year by a group of active trainers, riders and judges to create a special committee within the U.S. Hunter Jumper Association to review all aspects of our current system and make recommendations that will enable us to move closer to a system that will better serve our industry. This small group of horsemen has met once already, and I can tell you that they’re starting from ground zero.

Instead of trying to repair the current system, this group is taking a different approach by defining what our industry needs as a whole. We need more judges with the knowledge to do the job well, better educational materials, clinics and continuing education programs for our licensed officials. We need to educate our public, and we need a judging system with integrity but that’s also understandable and has some level of consistency.

We also need some state-of-the-art teaching tools. We need to update our video library for hunters and equitation, much like the jumper discipline has done. That costs money, but it’s money well spent.

Our curriculum needs to be consistent–the same basics need to be taught at all the clinics. We need to expand these clinics and attract everyone in our sport, not just those who want to obtain or keep a license.

We have a wonderful tool with the live demonstration and judging clinics for hunters and equitation. The only problem is that our panelists feel restricted about fully expressing their opinions without offending the volunteer riders. Somehow, we need to change this scenario.

Having served as a panelist in the Wellington, Fla., clinics for the last two years, I know that this is a definite problem. We need to solve it, because we’re not able to do our job properly if we cannot be completely forthright about the riders or the horses. I believe that most of these horsemen realize their horses’ faults. And I think that, if everyone involved understands this is for the common good, then we can actually make the live judging element the important learning tool it should be.

Nick Karazissis has compiled a wonderful library of equitation and hunter faults in a program on his laptop computer, which we used at the Kentucky clinic last spring.

This visual aid was incredible. Nick put up a picture of a horse hanging its legs. I knew he had three photos that would get successively worse, but co-panelist Linda Andrisani didn’t, and she sure called it as she saw it on the first picture! When Linda and everyone else saw the other two, we all laughed since you wouldn’t think it could get any worse–hanging the legs, really hanging the legs, and, oh my god, how did it not flip over?

This is the type of visual aid that will stick in people’s minds and develop instant recall. Our educational program needs devices like this to make things stick.

Finally, I want to talk about my pet peeve with all this talk of poor judging–the responsibility on the part of the parent, exhibitor and trainer.

If you’re unhappy with the outcome of a class, you have options to remedy the situation. First, you can go to the steward and ask to speak with the judge. Most judges will be happy to speak with you in the presence of the steward, and with their card, when they’re on a break. It’s foolish to think you’ll be able to decipher each judge’s set of symbols, so asking to see their card without them present is useless, unfair and disrespectful.

Second, you can fill out a Judges’ Evaluation Form from the horse show office. You can mail this directly to the USEF office–you don’t have to turn it in to the steward or the show office. The same goes for other USEF evaluation forms. People like to use the excuse that they’re not kept confidential, and that’s just an excuse. There may have been problems in the past, but I can tell you that any information I’ve received that has originated from a confidential evaluation form, all names and addresses have been removed. So you have no excuse anymore.

Take some responsibility for your sport and use the avenues available for improving the situation. Likewise, let the USEF know when judges, show organizers and stewards do a good job. Unfortunately, the USEF office gets very few evaluation forms.

Do it yourself; it only takes a few minutes and a stamp. If it’s not worth five minutes of your time and 37 cents, then your complaint probably doesn’t have much merit, does it?

We’re at a crossroads in our sport, and we must take the opportunity to make it better for everyone. What’s important is the ability to look beyond our own personal agendas and get involved in developing programs and policies that are for the benefit of the whole sport.

I believe that we all have the ability to do this, and I’m seeing glimpses of this ability every day. I know this group of dedicated horsemen working on the judging system will bring forth an innovative plan that will lead us to our goal of a better and understandable system.

The next step will be up to you. Please, keep an open and responsible mind and plan to attend the USHJA convention in Miami on Dec. 5-8 to be involved in the future of our sport.