More showing chronicles. Not to bore you or to toot our horns, but to make you think. To ask questions. To reflect. Dressage training should make our horses more rideable, more comfortable in their bodies as riding horses, better in their minds, and keep them sound longer as our partners. At least that is what my trainers have taught me.Our rescue organization takes in horses, some with long histories of  lameness, and through proper training, conditioning and development over time, return them to a useful life working in the lesson program. In many cases these horses are candidates for euthanasia following performance careers that have left them in the condition in which they come to us. Many trainers and judges are railing against todays riding and training practices but is the competitive world actually listening? Western Dressage is relying on USDF/USEF dressage judges to build its future with every organization (except IPHDA ) recommending and even requiring that the tests be judged by qualified dressage judges. 

This brings me to the topic. We try to show in a variety of venues. Not to bring home ribbons, we usually leave those to help save show venues a little money. Not for kudos or recognition, there is damn little of that in this industry. We show at this point first, for fun. Yes, it is fun for some. We show to make a vision of western dressage real for people. Most importantly we show to receive the feedback we hope is going to be valuable from qualified professionals in the equestrian world. THAT is what we really pay for; the scoresheet we receive back that we rely on as both the evaluation of our work as well as a tool to help us improve. So what is going on here?

In our sport, we compete against an ideal but in order for that to work, the ideal must be a known quantity to both riders and judges. Our performance relative to it must be evaluated by people who understand not only the ideal, but the process that leads through each phase of training to it. Do our judges have the training needed to provide adequate feedback or to help us understand our training process better?

I want to relay two show reports. The first comes from a virtual show. One ride shows a relaxed horse, beautiful soft head and neck position, light contact, tail swinging, forward moving, willing, obedient, accurate transitions, straight and bending in the figures, and fairly well balanced for the level.  The mark was 61%. Yeah OK fine. The limited comments were at best innocuous, at worst demonstrated a lack of understanding of basic dressage.  Another ride shows a horse in a training device (legal for WD in this case) with the head severely pulled in to the chest and poll down, balance running onto the forehand, transitions crammed forward and down in front and spurred under behind, crooked overall and ropewalking. Both horizontal and lateral balance issues common to horses ridden in forced hyperflexion were clearly present. The mark is an 89%. Think about it. What is going on here?

Show number two is a local show judged by a qualified dressage judge. Rider gets the test back with minimal comments and the marks are all 7’s with three 8’s. “8” is GOOD!  I was teaching a clinic out of town and was unable to see the ride, bummer. But thanks to the miracle to modern video technology, the ride was captured for posterity in digital format forever (or until we deleted it, which was almost immediately). So several days after the show we sat down together to watch what we hoped would be a shining example of her improvement over the show season. We sat in silence, watching till the end as her horse ran through the figures, above the bit, (what bit…. the reins were flapping wildly), no bend shown in either direction, no roundness, no relaxation, no steady rhythm...  The halt was crooked, against the bit, losing balance, 3 strides early and not even close to square.  It took a minute to digest the whole thing and I did not speak. After a bit we looked at each other and with tears in her eyes she said “That was terrible!” 
Yikes!!!  Ummmmmm… What do I say?  The mark was a 70+%.  What is going on here?

Judges, what ideals are being upheld here? Honestly, I can’t tell but they are clearly different. Judges, ask yourselves what ideal you are upholding and why. We know when our ride was bad. We know when we think a ride was good. Sometimes we are wrong and we rely on you to help us differentiate. Gifting a rider a generous score may not be a favor to them. Being harsh may not give an accurate reflection of the quality of the ride either. Most important though, what I have pointed out and what I want readers to reflect on is the inconsistency both in the identification of the ideal itself and in the evaluation of it. 

On Facebook the other day, Cowboy Dressage shared an article called “Judging and the State of Dressage” by Jeff Moore. I saw it in the CD news feed at  https://www.facebook.com/debbie.bethhalachmy?fref=ts. It is an outstanding analysis of the issue I have talked about here. I encourage you readers to read the whole article but here is a little of what he said at the end that I hope makes you think whether you are a rider, trainer, instructor or judge:
“So what to do?

Compete for fun if you like (and like dressing up and sweating), but remember that the judges may know less than you do, or your instructor does … Some of the most knowledgeable people I know are ‘stay-at-homes’ who are more interested in learning than in scraps of taffeta.” 
In the end it is all about the learning, isn’t it?

Thank you all for taking the time to read this blog and for your interest in Western Dressage. I welcome your input regarding anything you have read in this blog, your rescue horse’s story as well as your western dressage story at [email protected].

Michelle Binder-Zolezzi is the founder of the Relational Riding Academy. Relational Riding is a program that utilizes dressage as fundamental training for all horses performing in all disciplines. She has been an ARIA certified Instructor since 1989. She is currently working on her second book “Relational Riding: A Horsemanship Tutorial,” and has completed work on two professional video productions, “Any Horse, Any Rider: Relational Riding: A Universal Foundation” and "Understand Riding From the Ground Up."