Shadow judging at Boneo Park.
© Dana Krause
By Dana Krause
Last weekend I attended an intensive G level judges seminar run by EV at Boneo Park (emphasis on intensive), a terrific initiative to increase the numbers of judges we have in Victoria and suffice to say the amount of interest was unprecedented! At 1:00pm sharp on the 28th of July 35 potential judges were there and ready to go, from professional riders and coaches, interested parents to young riders like myself. Having completed hundreds of hours pencilling from Preliminary right up to our Olympic and WEG qualifiers, pencilling for my first Grand Prix at the age of 11, I was not as prepared as I hoped I was.
There’s four major components to this weekend. Prior to the weekend, the open rule book test had to be completed with a 90% pass mark which kept us on our toes ensuring that we were all well acquainted with the current dressage rule book. The introduction session Saturday afternoon, the theory lecture Saturday night and our first attempt at shadow-judging Sunday meant it really was an action-packed weekend!
Saturday, we signed in, had headsets on, notebook out and we were all ready to soak up the advice and guidance from the incredible Jane Ventura and Jackie Reed who are both successful A level judges — and they did not disappoint! Jane was extremely well-prepared, distributing pamphlets that informed us on everything from an in-depth detail for each mark and what they meant, to how to keep your comments positive and helpful for the riders. We quickly flicked through before our first horse came into the arena. We listened to what both Jane and Jackie looked for in the Novice tests and witnessed how the judges went about their process of judging. At the conclusion of the session we were told our scores for the Open Rule Book Test were available in the tea room next to the indoor, which resulted in a sea of people descending on poor Glen Gault (another super judge who had given up her time) in the quest to find out if they had passed or not. Thankfully all was good for me and I passed with marks to spare.
The evening session.
© Dana Krause
Everyone was happy that the evening session was taking place in the warmth of the Riders Retreat and we were very lucky to have a delicious dinner before Jackie began the theory session with the help of electronic wizard and fellow judge Lee Howells. This was an interesting and eye-opening session with many qualified judges attending looking to either re-accredit, move up a level or purely there to keep learning more and more. We moved through the five modules emphasising the importance of marking to the training scale, how to handle potential horse welfare issues, errors of course vs penalties, how to go about marking the collectives, how to word our comments in a way that will help the rider and of course many questions, laughs and debates along the way. By 9.00pm we were all done and our minds overflowing with knowledge we helped ourselves to some delicious cakes and fruit before making our way back to floats, hotels or home before the 8am start the following day.
The final day consisted of shadow judging a full Novice class followed by a full Preliminary and though it didn’t sound daunting the night before, setting up a chair and folder with a penciller sitting beside me waiting for the first rider definitely a few nerves set in.
Personally, this was one of the most intimidating things I have done but as the day went on it got easier and easier to get into the groove. However, with 35 trainees plus their pencillers scattered around the indoor it was an electric atmosphere with some tense moments, errors of course, penalties, retirements and eliminations we were certainly put to the test with how we should mark these movements and what to do if a horse enters late. We were lucky to have Jane as the C judge for the official competition who demonstrated how to handle a range of situations with diplomacy and with the rider’s best interest at heart. Lihla Wyles and Glen Gault were on hand to answer any questions and make sure everything was running smoothly behind the scenes. After judging the first few riders I was able to hone in on what I was looking for in each movement and with Jane and Jackie’s words in my head I was able to articulate comments and marks that I thought reflected the test and hopefully were helpful and positive to the rider. Now we are all just waiting feedback from Jane who will be going through all our sheets and comparing the marks to the comments given, if we are using the right terminology and if we have completed the shadow judging to a high standard we will have passed and are officially judges.
Everyone was happy that the evening session was taking place in the warmth of the Riders Retreat.
© Dana Krause
I am certain all participants walked away with a new and improved knowledge of the rules and of a judge’s perspective. Ours is a fabulous sport that is full of people with a wealth of knowledge who are happy to share and encourage those who put themselves forward to learn, thank you to all the judges, Jane, Jackie, Lee, Judy, Lihla and Glen who were happy to be there for us. We are lucky as equestrians to have a facility like Boneo Park, thank you Fiona for accommodating us and all the riders that we were able to watch, be it for the spectating or shadow judging. Suffice to say it was an exhausting but educational weekend, I would recommend everyone to attend one of these seminars if they are interested in becoming a dressage judge!
