Hunter Judging, Don’t Beat a Good Horse With a Bad HOrse
Don’t beat a good horse with a bad horse.
As judges, we try to have the best horse win. The best horse should be the best jumper and this horse should jump:
- high
- round
- scopey
- soft.
Jumping ‘out of stride’ is a must and any hiccups are marked accordingly. This means when a judge sits in his/her box we have to assess each horse on their own merit.
Turnout, scope, ability, style they are all assessed in the 2 minute round. Chips, rubs, wrong leads, breaks to trots, and bad jumping style is all recorded.
It is imperative that judges “don’t beat a good horse with a bad horse”. Some horses will come into the ring and on it’s best day may able to score a 61 due to its scope and poor form. A better horse, a horse with rounder scope, better form and stride, may be able to place over a horse with poor form even though it had a ‘rub’ on a rail.
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“don’t beat a good horse with a bad horse” – I’ve never heard this phrase before but it’s certainly a good one!