QUESTIONS on how the Grand Prix was judged....

[Terry Wallace]

I understand that the judges explained the placements...that is great news... I was told this show is an attempt to get away from the boring format, and be more informative to the spectators...was it successful in doing so?

here are my questions:

How much time did it add to the class to have judge(s) explain the placings, and was it first through third...or was it ALL placements?

Were there many workoffs in the classes?

Was anything said about the "cut tails" on many of the horses in the classes?

Were shoes required to show?

[Pasogirlz]

The classes themselves took longer because each horse entered the ring alone while their name, sire, dam, rider, owner and breeder were announced. Then the next horse would enter, etc.
Then rail work w/reverses, then go over the board and line up to go over again. (so twice). Then the judges would eliminate anyone they felt was out gait or acting up, etc. If they had a question about your horse being in gait they would ask you to do the board again to be fair.

Then each horse did the individual work offs of figure 8's (2 in each direction around the poles), then serpantine in both directions, then sounding board again in both directions. If you messed up on any of this they excused you at this point. If you made the cut, there was usually more rail work and sounding board to the judges discrection. So basically there were work offs in all classes, some more lengthy than others. Every time a horse was excused it was explained why right then. When placements were given it was explained the good things and faults of each horse and why it was placed where it was. In some cases they would have two horses go down the rail together while they explained why they placed them in such an order. It did not seem to take a whole lot longer to do this IMO. Each class took about an hour depending on the number of competitors, but it was not the explainations that took the time, it was the individual work offs...but that was the interesting part to me. If you watched the work offs you knew why the judges placed who where.

Explainations/Reasons for lower placements or excusal:
Not consistent in gait the whole time
Bad temperment
Break gait/canter on figure 8's or serpantine
Rider mistake on figure 8 pattern or serpantine pattern
Loss of energy during hte class or work off
*There was more but this is all I can think of at this moment.

The show was very successful in being more informative and entertaining to watch for spectators. I heard many ppl say things like "Wow, this is great!", "This is awesome". "I'm bringing MY horses next time".




About the tails. Nothing was said about them being cut, but one horse did not place as high in one class because his tail was "unattractive". *Nito might be able to give a better clarification of what the judges said b/c he is the one who heard it. The tail probably had been cut, but basically it had a bad hair cut to go w/it which really called attention to it. :mad:

I don't recall if shoes were required, but I think most every horse was wearing them. I'll check on that for you Terry.


I will say the judges were much easier on the a/o classes and were a little more forgiving w/them. But the trainer classes were no joke.

[Kerry W]

Link to list of "concepts" for the shows:

http://www.pasofinograndprix.com/Concepts.asp

[SandyMM]

That is great to hear that the judges are willing (and allowed the time) to stand up and say _why_ they placed each horse and why a horse was excused... and that that excused horses were shown the gate (no pun intended ;-) ) immediately. It is difficult to promote our breed when horses who are misbehaving in the ring or out of gait (even if they are just having a bad day in that one show, in that one class) are allowed to circulate along with the correct horses. That is _so_ important for the credibility of the breed and of the judging. And whether the spectators agree or not... at least they know what the judge(s) thought was important!

[paintedhorizon]

I wish I could have gone!

Each class took a minimum of 45 minutes ( classes were ALL full ) the class that took the shortest amount of time was fino colts because there was only about 6 horses and only one made the cut to go to the individual work outs and that only took about 15 min.

The way the judges/animator of the show explained the stuff was very informative and no one left the arena questioning the results. The animator, Carlos Tobon, would explain what the judges were doing and how they are judging the class- if it was performance or pleasure he would explain what corto and largo is and how they are going to be worked.

The only time a horse was excused cause of the tail was that one horse because of it playing with its tail and unattractive it was ( it had a short cut) mostly all of the horses had thier tails done so tail alternation was not a problem

The judges usually tried to keep 6 placements in ALL the classes unless some got out of the modality and cut the class shorter.

The extra work offs after individual work offs were mainly between horses who were tied.. it was normal PFHA style with rail and board.

I was satisfied with the show since the first time it happend and as soon as I have a horse to show I will show him/her for sure. Tampa show is in November and I do plan to show any of my horses. Although it is not pointed by the PFHA it is worth it for the experience and the cash ;-)

[jodiTowne]

Did I hear correctly...ALL of the tails were altered!!!??? How sad and disgusting if true. What happened to pasos being natural???????

I do like the idea of the show format and hearing why horses placed as they did.

[Pasogirlz]

Did I hear correctly...ALL of the tails were altered!!!??? How sad and disgusting if true. What happened to pasos being natural???????

I do like the idea of the show format and hearing why horses placed as they did.

I do not know if ALL the tails were alltered. *smacks Nito
It was hard to tell on most horses b/c the tails appeared to have the "natural J" look w/a nice flow. Only a few had a real exaggerated J.

[Brigitte]

That's how it goes around here...

let me correct myself.... 99.8%

and they didnt look "disgusting and sad" because they were jobs well done not sloppy. ;-)

[dana]

***smacks NITO again!

JOBS WELL DONE ? ? ?

what the h@ll is wrong with this picture?

dana

[Terry Wallace]

Thanks so much for your replies, I appreciate it and will relay this to our club president, as we may consider adopting this "proceedure".

I still hope our resident judges will reply as to how they feel about being asked to explain placements...Lynn? Cindy? Your thoughts...

I feel it is too late to do this for this show season, because our judges are booked far in advance of a show, and they are under "contract"...and the agreement does not say they must do this. I feel that kind of implementation should be up front...not an "after-thought"...

[SandyMM]

let me correct myself.... 99.8%

and they didnt look "disgusting and sad" because they were jobs well done not sloppy.

The precision of an illegal act does not make it less illegal... And if _so_ many horses have a 'natural' J tail - why are so many cut? Too many people looking for a 'short cut' to success? Hmmmmmmmmmmm?

[Cindy]

It depends on the show, Terry. For example, the Utah show would not be a problem to use the microphone to explain placements. But for bigger shows it is simpy not possible as there is not time. Now, to do it for certain classes that have very good competition, that could be done and is at times. But to do it for every class is not practical and is, to me, unnecessary.

To me as a spectator, I find it anticlimactic as I would rather see the suspense of the class being placed last to first. And especially when the explaining is being done in spanish. My inlaws were at Spectrum last year for the Fino Stallions on Saturday night. They are not Paso Fino people and that was the first time they had been to a Paso Fino show of that caliber. They are, however, horse people. The placements were explained and announced by the judges in spanish. They had no idea who won what and came away confused and having learned absolutely nothing about how the horses were judged on that day. It was embarrasing to me and if I had been someone who walked in off the street to see a Paso Fino show and learn more about the breed and did not speak spanish, I would never go to another Paso Fino show.

I think it is great that there has been a venue developed to provide this type of show format in this country and especially the prize money that is being offered. And I hope this continues to grow and be successful all around the country. But to think that the Paso Fino shows could be run like this is illogical. Many sacrifices have been made in order to provide the time necessary to do all the individual workoffs and to annonce all the placements and to bring each horse in one by one and tell who they are. The fact is, this cannot be done and still offer 80 or 90 classses a day. It cannot be done with HALF that number of classes a day. How many 45 minute classes can you put in a day and which classes are you going to remove from the show schedule?

[Pasogirlz]

Explainations at the Grand Prix were in both English and Spanish. I would say more so in English than anything.

[Cindy]

There is a problem even when they are done in English and Spanish. The problem from the shows that I have seen is this, the announcements are made by the judges is Spanish FIRST. They are then translated into English by someone, could be one of the judges, could be someone else. There are two problems that I have seen with this method. One, many times the translation is lacking. Much more is said in Spanish than is translated into English. Two, by the time the English translation is being said, the crowd is going crazy and one cannot hear a thing that is going on. Horses have left the arena, winners are going down the board, and the translator is usually so frustrated that they give up even doing the translation. In either case, the attempt at translating is somewhat pointless.

Now, if I were at a show in Colombia or Puerto Rico I would expect anything announced to be announced in Spanish. If they gave me the courtesy of a translation, that would be a great courtesy for which I would be very grateful. And in this country, if the shows would like to give the courtesy of announcing in Spanish as well as in English, I think that is a great thing. However, can we not make English the FIRST language of our shows here and have the translation made INTO Spanish instead of the other way around? After all, the people we are trying to educate and SELL THE BREED TO for the most part SPEAK ENGLISH. If we were trying to sell Harleys in Colombia we would most likely speak in Spanish to the mostly Spanish speaking people EVEN THOUGH there are many people in that country who also understand English. If we did not, we would most likley NOT sell many Harleys in Colombia. Does this make sense to ANYONE?

[LynnG]

Verbal explanations would be best with one judge in the ring...or in this case a conferring situation...where there is one outcome to explain. Now whether this system at Grand Prix was group conferring which it seemed it was ...there is no accoubtability as per individual placements or opinions of judges if their are more dominant judges. Using a MOS system, as at Natls there are still basicly 3 judges opinions per each class and then averaged out.

And then any explanations need to be made as in strict reference to the indivdual rules/dcescriptions per that class/division.

This may be a novel idea at smaller shows that have the time. And I have been at smaller shows where show management would like you to talk to each exhibitor individually with tips at line up. Even then someone will suggest you are giving that person "favoritism" and an advantage where they will go back in next time and beat the other person. So you see there are pros and cons...

Anyone can attend a judges clinic to learn more. Shows can put on more clinics combined with shows for learning experiences, say the day before or the day after. Anyone can confer with the judges after a PFHA show and ask questions. Most judges are open for explanations if you ask otherwise. There has been cases in the past where the owners of horses not placed well, strongly resented their horse critiqued publicly and threaten legally. So in reality the horses can be compared verbally in a positive manner, and then too often generally in terms.

Some shows have very good show programs at their shows whcih explain the class description and what qualities are being judged on. Just remember horse shows are about judging the horses that have been prepared to compete and fulfill the requirements of the class description. I have seen few all-breed horse shows in the US where judges make explainations, but judges are usually always after a show to talk to.

[motorgypsy]

Agree totally.

We have a friend from Miami and he tells a story of attending a PTA meeting at his child's school in Miami. Now first of all an amazing number of people in Miami are totally bilingual so they do speak English as well as Spanish - but they do tend to forget there are non Spanish speakers in the room with them. The members and officers of the PTA just automatically spoke Spanish in this large meeting. After all it is their first language. He had to raise his hand and say "You know this is the US and some people in here don't speak Spanish"! They apologized and immediately switched to English for the rest of the meeting. They really do forget that not everyone speaks Spanish.

So considering the country the show is in - the first language should be English, then the Spanish translation and if you are a rider from a Spanish speaking country who doesn't speak English it would be a very good idea to learn enough English to function in the show ring.

One of the things I liked about the explanation of the judging was that the judges would sometimes have the riders go around the ring while they were describing why they placed that particular horse or those two horses so the audience could observe the same thing as the judges. Since they would describe the reasons for placement of a horse, they would not be going on to the next horse until that one had left the ring. Except for one case where a rider with a LOW placement sat back and waited until they had pinned the 1st place horse and the winner left the ring and then the guy went across the sounding board - very rude and disrespectful to the judges. Of course, you should have seen the same guy trying to angle his horse outside the arena to be in the background behind Maraquero when he was being filmed and his rider interviewed after his spectacular class.

The audience was huge for a paso show and it was nice to see a packed parking lot. The vendors had a good selection of tasty food, especially the steak cooking on some spinning metal cone. For the most part, the audience listened to the explanations in both Spanish and English and did not disrupt the speaker. There is always some audience noise and some rude people, but on the whole most were well-behaved and there were sure a lot less roaming dogs than most shows.

I don't speak Spanish and would have liked to have the explanation in English first for my own benefit, but then it wasn't my show. The men that put the Grand Prix on did a fabulous job and can run the show any way they choose. It certainly appeared that most of the audience did speak fluent Spanish, so the choice os Spanish as the first language used was not a problem.

[motorgypsy]

Regarding tails - if this was Miami and mostly Miami horses I can understand a lot of tails being done but there are lots and lots of natural J's that don't need to be done and the shows in SC and NC have a lot of good horses (the Asheville show is HUGE) whose tails are obviously not done and these horses do win. Our filly Arwen has a very natural J and all we would need to do is part the hair in the middle and wrap it after washing it to get the "show look".

One more reminder - "doing tails" is illegal unless it is done by a vet and it is illegal in the show ring period.