YEH Jump Scribing @ MDHT

Last week I headed down to Loch Moy to volunteer at their YEH qualifier as a scribe for the jumping phase. The Young Event Horse program is a set of classes aimed at 4yos and 5yos to evaluate their potential as future upper level event horses.

You might remember that last fall I attended the East Coast YEH Championships up at Fair Hill, specifically attending Marilyn Payne's YEH Judging Clinic. I wrote a little bit about it here (there were an awful lot of blogger meetups happening around then lol!), and posted more pics of the 5yos during the jumping phase here, but didn't get too technical in any of the judging aspects bc... ya know... I don't really have a judge's eye when it comes to these things lol.

only picture of a horse in this post lol. that's me with judges Stephen Bradley, Helen Brettell, with first rider of the day: Stephanie Rhodes-Bosch on her 5yo Abstract Cape schooling the water ahead of her round.
fun fact: Stephen Bradley was the last rider from the US to win at Burghley, which he did in 1993. you can watch the highlight video from that year right here at Burghley TV.

But!! I really love volunteering at Loch Moy specifically (they always give us apparel plus xc schooling passes, which I really need to start using....). So when Sara announced her 2018 Volunteer Challenge I decided to bake volunteerism into my yearly goals, with the intention of volunteering in some capacity at events in 7 months this year.

I went on to the USEA Volunteer Dashboard and scanned through Area II's events calendar month by month, picking out interesting opportunities. Esp looking so far in advance, I was able to lock down some really cool looking volunteer positions before they filled up. So I've actually been looking forward to this event for a while now lol. #nerdalert

the stadium portion comprised 5 fences all jumped first before moving to the xc portion

The YEH jumping phase is set up a bit like a cross derby, and Loch Moy ran the classes out on their schooling course at the entrance to the property, vs the competition course you might be used to seeing on the blog. Notably, this will be the area I eventually school in whenever we finally put all those complimentary passes to use haha.

Anyway, the course is 15 flagged elements. The first five are stadium style fences, set at ~BN for the 4yos and ~N for the 5yos. The heights and spreads are supposed to grow throughout the season such that by the time horses reach the championship, 4yos are doing ~N and 5yos are doing ~T (with maybe a little added technicality).

For this course, the heights and spreads were fairly soft. And the lines were also basically unrelated distances, set fairly far apart. All in all, a very inviting course in terms of the jumps themselves. Tho there was actually a fair amount of terrain and tight-ish turns that would all ask the horse to be adjustable and balanced.

sorry i forgot to take my picture before we walked passed these jumps lol, so this is the back side. they're both just roll tops tho, and i've previously jumped them both before (the N one with Izzy)

Once horses completed the stadium portion, they moved on to the xc fences. Judges were looking for a distinct change in the horse from one section to the next - the style and pace should adjust accordingly.

simple pheasant feeders. i've jumped both of these before too, tho the N only with Izzy too

The first set of xc fences took the riders in one big loop of this front field - around the judge's tent and around all the stadium fences they had just completed.

simple houses - these get skinnier as they go up the levels. you might remember Brita and Rachael jumped the skinneh T version this past winter during one of the arena schoolings when Charlie stayed home bc of that whole 'stepped on a nail' episode..

The jumps themselves were fairly straight forward but again the horses would be facing rapidly changing terrain combined with turns. Honestly it looked pretty fun haha.

these are pretend ditch wall jumps - the ditch is just suggested by wooden framing. they're actually quite inviting, tho i've never jumped either personally. you can see our little judges stand just beyond - with the water right next to it

After that little circuit of the field, riders would come back up toward the judge's tent and through the water to move on into the second half of the course on the other side of the field.

simple water crossing, with the whole rest of the course in the background

The YEH rules are pretty friendly toward these young horses - before each rider starts their course they're allowed and encouraged to let the horse look around a little bit, especially going through the water a couple times first too. Some riders took this maybe a touch too far by letting their horse sniff literally every single fence on course lol, but for the most part they would just circle through the water a little bit before signaling that they were ready.

The judges, for their part, did specifically want to wait until the riders were ready too. Like, obviously within reason, but the whole point of these classes is to set the horses up so that they can best demonstrate their potential. It's not supposed to be a trick or a trap, and nobody really wanted these young horses to be surprised, rushed or confused on course.

i've jumped both of these hanging log things too. they actually didn't jump great on this day, esp the left side 4yo version

Anyway the next little segment on course was probably the trickiest. Small fences but tricky lines with the terrain. The judge Stephen designed this course but apparently wasn't allowed or able to move the xc fences, so he kinda had to work with what he had here. So he chose small and inviting fences for the 11 and 13 jumps, with one long line of ditches situated between as 12.

long line of ditches, from very narrow to a bit wider L to R. then comes 13 - just in the distance. the 4yo 13 is very small, and the 5yo 13 has appeared on both BN and N courses and i've jumped it with both horses.

The 5yos (who went first) maybe had an easier line even tho they went over the bigger ditch, but the 4yo line had more extreme angles and especially going downhill was maybe trickier haha.

A couple riders expressed some concern, and the judges ultimately opted to remove the central flags (the 4yo red 12 flag in the above picture) such that the entire line of ditches was an option. This way, riders could jump whichever portion of the ditch helped give them the best line for their horse's ability.

i've jumped both these garden gates too! plus the smaller version lol

After horses made it through that little ditch complex, it was a simple matter of climbing up the hill to these penultimate fences, the garden gates.

final option: keyhole with very small fence, and larger N ramp table thingy. riders from both 4yo and 5yo did both options as suited their particular horses. 

Then last on course was an option for both age groups: an N ramp or a very small jump through a keyhole. I honestly wasn't really sure which one would be most popular. On one hand, the keyhole is in some ways spookier and more technical, but on the other hand it's a very small jump that an unimpressed horse might not try very hard over.

I think a lot of horses from both age groups may have done the keyhole, but plenty did the ramp too (esp the 5yos). I guess it just depended on each individual horse and rider what was the best choice.

full final field of xc fences. upon completing jump 15, riders would arc left to follow the driveway back toward us demonstrating their horse's open gallop

Anyway, upon completing the final fences, riders would turn left to follow the driveway back toward the judge's tent, demonstrating their horse's open gallop. Again it was a little tricky with the terrain as the first half was down hill, then the second half had nice upward slope to it but then fell away rapidly right at the finish haha. Plus the trailers were on the other side of the driveway and a lot of horses were a little sticky wanting to pull in that direction.

Still, tho, pretty cool to watch!

4yos at the 2017 YEH East Coast Championship at Fair Hill

Unfortunately, I didn't expect to be able to take any pictures or video during the actual competition bc I'd be, ya know, scribing haha. And this did prove to be true.

5yos at the 2017 YEH East Coast Championship at Fair Hill

So for those curious or interested to see what these classes look like in action, see the above video compilations from the Championships at Fair Hill last year. These young horses are pretty freakin impressive!!

top half of the score sheet. each jump is judged separately from 0-3

So let's talk a little more about the actual scribing. There are four components that go into each horse's final score, which is a percentage out of 100 (ie: 75.5%).

The dressage component has a maximum of 30 points that each horse can earn. The 5 show jumping efforts contribute 15 possible points, then the 10 xc fences add up to another 30 possible points. The judge's overall evaluation of the horse's jumping is worth another 15 possible points, and the final general impression from jumping is a maximum of 10 points.

bottom half of the score sheet allows judges to evaluate all the rest of the horse's performance between the jumps and in its open gallop. final general impression reflected their thoughts on the horse's upper level potential. 

Each individual jumping effort was scored from 0-3, with half points allowed. A score of 3 reflected a nice forward effort with correct technique, usually out of stride, or at least with the horse demonstrating an ability to think and adjust as needed.

Points were lost for more sluggish or unbalanced jumps, sloppier technique, or horses that were overly reliant on the rider. The lowest scores went to jumps taken in very poor form, like over the shoulder or hanging legs or deer leaps.

order of go, also including the New Event Horse (NEH) class - which can be horses of any age in their first year of eventing. the NEH horses did the 4yo track and height. some of the NEH horses were 5yos who weren't ready for the step up in height of the 5yo YEH class. others were ottbs or amateur owned and ridden horses. the NEH score sheet was basically identical to the YEH sheet except in the Overall Evaluation section, instead of "rideability" it listed "suitability" and wanted the score to reflect the horse's suitability to be an amateur or young rider horse.

I usually tried to get those scores added up while the judges watched the open gallop, as it was useful for them to hear the overall totals from the jumping sections as they assessed the overall evaluation and general impressions.

Overall Evaluation was basically where the judges conferred with each other to talk about everything that happened on course that wasn't necessarily reflected in the individual jump effort scores. This included evaluating the horse's final gallop, like it's ground cover and lengthening of stride and lowering of frame.

meanwhile, the photographer's dogs provided the comic relief in the lulls between riders

And they also discussed at length each horse's balance and way of going in between fences. Was he changing leads as needed? Balanced in the changeable terrain? Able to think and learn as it progressed through the course?

There were times where the judges weren't entirely satisfied with how the horses were ridden - meaning that in some cases the riders were interfering with the horse's ability to use itself or show its true potential. Or in some cases the horses were maybe too reliant on the riders or required too strong of a ride.

one was very placid, while the other was very very very playful lol

Mostly tho, the overall evaluation scores ranged from 6-9, with tenths of points awarded such that it might be a 7.2 or 7.5, or 6.0 etc etc etc. During this section, judges often referred back to previous horses' scores too - often asking each other whether they liked this one better than that one so that they could score accordingly using a consistent measuring stick.

It was interesting to me that each of these overall evaluation scores was then multiplied by 0.5 and added together to arrive at their max 15 point component to the final score. So your 7.5 becomes a 3.75, and the differences between scorers thus fairly compressed.

she had gone on and rolled all around in the water, then rolled in the blue stone lol

Anyway the last score component, worth 10 total points to the final score, was the General Impression. This was where judges used a 0-10 range (again with tenths of points allowed) to assess what they thought the horse might be capable of in the future.

The number ranges correspond to eventing levels, with ~7 being around preliminary, and ~8 being around intermediate. Again the purposes of these YEH classes is to evaluate upper level potential so riders would really be looking for that 8+ score here.

It was kinda funny to me tho, bc even the horses that the judges didn't find particularly impressive or talented were sorta dismissed as, "Sure it'll get around prelim, but probably not any further than that!" as if prelim were the easiest thing in the world lol. Which, ya know, I guess if you're Helen Brettell and Stephen Bradley, maybe it is! For me tho, if someone sorta shrugged watching Charlie go and was like, "Eh sure he'd do prelim but that's it" I'd be walking on air lol.

she was a happy pupper for sure lol

But that's kinda the thing with this whole other world that is the upper echelons of eventing. Because it really is a whole 'nother world. I thanked the judges after we were done and said I felt like I learned a lot, and Helen was surprised bc she and Stephen had really mostly been chatting the whole time (there were a LOT of lulls between riders - that short class list was spread over 4:45 hours).

When I explained that I really don't get a lot of exposure to this stuff and that even their "chatting" is enlightening to me she was kinda like, "I guess that makes sense" lol, but yea I definitely felt like the meek little amateur in the presence of giants haha.

It was a great time tho, and I honestly really enjoyed scribing for it and would do it again in a heartbeat. And while we saw some really special horses (this lovely gray Frame Gandolf ridden by Martin Douzant I believe was our 5yo winner, for example), we also saw a lot of horses (and riders!) that, ya know, were just regular old mortals lol.

We saw mistakes, missed distances. Sluggish, behind the leg horses, and horses running at the fences and leaping over somewhat erratically. We saw riders that interfered and picked, or who maybe made poor choices. But, ya know, they were all out there doing it and everyone got through the course and the day looking happy and like maybe they all learned something.

So it was fun. And actually I am now kinda jonesing for riding the same course lol. Maybe my friends and I will try to get out there and play pretend and judge each other's rides accordingly haha..