Many thanks to dressage judge Carolyn James for this report from the day spent at SIEC listening to British dressage guru, Stephen Clarke, who will be President of the Ground Jury for dressage in London.
Stephen Clarke Photo: Franz Venhaus/EA
Following the CDI at SIEC a large number of coaches, riders, interested spectators and of course judges, including me, were treated to a fascinating day of all things dressage. We watched tests performed by a number of riders and horses who had competed at the CDI throughout the week, but what made it so special was that we were able to watch through the eyes of world renowned judge, Stephen Clarke from the UK. Stephen is an FEI ‘O’ or 5* judge, has officiated at five World Cup finals, three European Championships and three World Equestrian Games and the London Olympics will be his second Olympics – so there is no doubt he certainly knows his stuff.
Stephen,who will be the President of the Ground Jury in London, shared with us some of his vast experience, knowledge and wisdom leading us into some thought provoking discussion. His philosophy is simple, it is all about improving standards and fairness.
Stephen began by setting the scene that faces the judges of today. “There is,” he said, “an ever-increasing pressure on judges” (which he felt was partly due to technology) “However as a judge you have to be true to yourself and you owe it to the riders to be honest. The riders should have a justifiable reason why we give a mark and we have to be realistic and fair. It is a question of balancing the positives and the negatives.”
He carried on by saying “a valuable tool to help riders is to be able to give an incisive and helpful comment. Rather than a judge continually saying throughout the test sheet ‘short in neck’ you should try to help the rider with the underlying reason of why the horse is short in the neck. For example ‘horse getting short in neck due to lack of engagement and the rider supporting the horse too much.”
It was also very evident that half marks were not a real favourite of Stephen's, as he felt that it was possible to judges to hide behind them. He spoke about the judge's assessors panel, which has been in place at the some of the competitions he officiated at. The panel comes into play if there is a major difference in a mark given by a judge. This can then be referred to the panel who will watch the test on video and if a mistake is evident they can change the mark. He did follow that by making the comment that at some competitions there were more officials than riders!
The riders who gave their time also gained from his expert eye and they should be thanked for performing for us all. Stephen watched the riders perform the tests and gave us his marks. Often he would use the word connected to that mark rather than the numerical mark. He firmly believes in keeping it simple and if you think of the word associated with the movement the mark will come. For example if the horse has rhythm in the walk and a quality in walk trot and canter then it must be at least an eight for paces. He then worked with some of the riders to assist with some issues they were having and it was wonderful to watch the combinations improve.
Photo: Peter Stoop
Those riders involved with the day were:
Maree Tomkinson riding Diamantina IV (pictured above)
Jodie Newell riding Maxx Jasper
Matthew Dowsley riding Falstermeyer
Caroline Wagner riding Tango V
Roger Fitzhardinge riding Amarigo
WORDS OF WISDOM
Here are a few of ‘Stephen’ comments, which I hope will stay with me for a long time:
That was half-baked.
Make more of a song and dance about it!
Relax to what he offers.
Push yourself away from your hands.
Be as effective as you have to be to get what you want, then relax yourself.
Electric reactions.
The horse must be reactive - You are having to do too much for too little.
There were many more pearls of wisdom and his exercises to help with various issues were extremely useful. The time passed all too quickly. I for one hope Stephen will come again to Australia and impart more of his vast knowledge and experience. I hope I can incorporate as much of what he said into my own coaching and judging. I guess we should all remember that judges are human and we can make mistakes but we should not make excuses for those mistakes but instead learn from them.
