Guest post: Judging hubby

I thought I’d sneakily steal the keyboard to write a quick guest post about my last couple of (horsey) weekends.

Most horsey weekends are Bree’s horsey weekends and I’m just chief groom, cook, and helper duty fulfiller. Last weekend was slightly different in that I was the horsey person and Bree was at home looking after the Animals.

I qualified as an Equestrian Australia Level 1 Show Jumping Judge about four years ago, which means that I can judge events up to 104cm. I’m also qualified as a Pony Club judge. Over the past few years I’ve had a number of really interesting opportunities including the chance to course build at the Perth Royal Show, officiate at Equestrian in the Park, judge at the Equestrian Western Australia Championships, Pony Club WA Championships, and some other big local competitions. It’s a really interesting role and I’ve learned an awful lot about show jumping as a result.

With the disease-which-must-not-be-named ruining everything this year, there haven’t been many competitions on and I haven’t had any opportunity to judge anything at all this year so far. That finally changed over last weekend, and while Bree was out doing some Cross-country training (jumping 1* into water apparently) and other crazy things that you wouldn’t catch a sane person doing (i.e. me), I drove 2 hours South-West of Perth to judge the second ring at the Dryandra Show Jumping Championships in Cuballing.

This year was my fourth year judging the Dryandra SJ Championships and it’s always a very well-run competition with a lot of variety. On both days this weekend our first horse was on course at 8am, and our last horse finished at around 5pm, only stopping during the day for course building and course walks. We had about 140 rounds each day. It makes for a very long and exhausting day. Added to that I managed to injure a tendon in my wrist thanks to being a home owner and I have to wear a splint.

My alarm went off at 4:15am on Saturday and I tried to drag myself out of bed without waking Bree. The plan was to put the kettle on, get dressed in the lounge, and get out the door without forgetting anything. Well, that was the plan - I nearly succeeded... I successfully dragged myself out of bed and into the lounge without waking Bree, but things went downhill after that point. I got dressed basically in the dark, and quickly realised I was wearing Bree’s jeans, popped back into the bedroom to get my own, waking Bree in the process. Then 2:30 hours later when I arrived in Cuballing I discovered I’d forgotten both pairs of my sunglasses, and had two left gloves. So I guess I failed on most counts, but I did arrive on time at 6:45am to walk the course, get myself set up, and open the course for walking so that surely counts for something.

We had several types of round during the weekend ranging from the pretty standard (some Blue Ribbon rounds, and 238.2.2/245.3 - the old AM7), to a Pony Grand Prix class, some Special Two Phase classes, and some novelties (Top Score, Take your own Line, Rescue Relay).

At the heights that I usually judge at the 238.2.2/245.3 competition is the most common. It’s a standard first round against the clock, and immediate jump-off round for athletes achieving a clear first round. It’s pretty easy to judge and easy for competitors. Not too much to confuse things and once you get rolling you can get through competitors pretty quickly.

This was also my first time judging a Grand Prix class solo - I’ve pencilled for Grand Prix classes with 30+ riders before but never judged one. For some reason the name “Grand Prix” made me inexplicably nervous, so I made sure to read the rules several times over the course of a few days. It turned out to be really quite simple on the whole once I got my head around it. It’s a two round competition with the first round not against the clock, and the second round against the clock. Then a jump-off for first and last place. As it happened I brought all riders back for the second round, and we had four in the jump-off. It was interesting, and useful, to run that kind of class with a small number of riders.

Normally when I’m judging I use a crib sheet for my own notes so that I can work out results quickly, and have a second copy of the results for checking the official results that the penciller has written. However, with my wrist in a splint I can’t easily write to I had a go with a spreadsheet on my iPad.

It worked really well on the whole but definitely room for improvement. Sadly it seems that all of the spreadsheet apps (well Numbers, and Excel) don’t let you write complex formulas on tablet devices and that was my main problem.

I also normally keep a quick reference board to help me place 2-phase classes. Lots of judges in Western Australia have been trying different options for these. The idea is to record the first round and jump-off time and penalties so that you can place the riders as you go. First by penalties and then by time so that you can really quickly order and re-order the winner.

Most people here have a block of wood with some tiles or laminated card:

The problem with these is that you need to take a block of wood and actually do something with it... and I suck at woodwork, don’t have the relevant tools, and even when I did have the time and tools I always found an excuse to never quite get around to it.

I decided to find my own solution: some off-the-shelf magnetic whiteboards, with magnetic whiteboard strips, and a marker.

For each rider I write a strip. If their first round is clear then I write their jump-off time and penalties and place it on the left. If they have penalties on their first round then I write the first round time and penalties and put them on the left. The magnets work well because I can move them around as I go to work out placings really quickly. I’m still refining it but I prefer it to the wooden boards that others use because everything is store bought, cheap, replaceable, and the cards don’t blow away. I usually write the jump-off down the middle strip, and times allowed at the top and bottom of that middle strip too. All of the important information in one place. It’s pretty easy to spot mistakes, and I can write the final placings on the back of the board and take a photo so that I always have a reference.

One of the nice things about judging at the Dryandra SJ championships is that they always have a number of novelty classes in the second ring. This year we had three and I’m getting better at, and more confident at judging them.

The Top Score, and Take your own line competitions are interesting because they essentially make the riders think about the lines that they take. There are a set number of jumps, which can be jumped in either direction, but the rest is up to the rider to decide. So often you see riders walk a course and just ride it without really thinking about the best options, or what the course designer has tried to offer them. It was really interesting to see how different riders thought about  their lines, and how their horses would handle what they had in mind. Across both of the competitions I don’t think we had a single round which used the same course as any other.

After about 16 hours of solid judging across the two days it was time to confirm all final scores, pack up, and take the 2:20 hour long drive back home.

All up it was an exhausting, but it was also very fun and I feel like I’ve grown in both confidence and in maturity as a judge.

I’m looking forward to the rest of the competition year, though some parts of it still seem to be hanging in the balance.