Judges opinions and tips

Question

I ride english, yeah, i just do basic walk trot canter, and i do pleasure classes. i cant win a walk trot class but i can a canter class, can any judges give me advice on riding and what u look for

Answer 1

aqha class, you need to sit and legs need to be still along with a straight back and soft hands.

hunter circuit, half seat everything, strong leg , follow with your arms, stay loose but yet firm position. I win every class at the "aa" in florida, you also want a horse thats freely moving big stride. If you  jump make sure you make distances and leads.

hope that helped some!

Answer 2

For pleasure classes, I literally look for a horse that is a pleasure to ride.  A well mannered and balanced horse is the most important thing I want to see.  So if you smile and ride on a loose rein, you show that your horse is well behaved.  Many judges care a lot about a horse's movement and frame too (although this isn't as important to me in a pleasure class because the most pleasurable horse I've ever ridden carried himself in an extremely tight frame with high knee carriage--so maybe I'm biased).

I would ask your instructor or an experienced friend what exactly you need to work on because you haven't really given enough information here.

Answer 3

Perhaps your mount is more comfortable at the canter then he is at the walk- trot. Many short strided horses often look or appear to have a short choppy walk and trot. Judges prefer to see an animal with a nice even top line that in their eyes would be a "pleasure" to ride.

Answer 4

im not a judge but if you go to http://www.usef.org

and click on the rules link and find which dicipline u compete in then u can look @ the rules and figure out wat exactly a judge is looking for

good luck! =]]

Answer 5

If you can win the w/t/c but not the w/t, two things are possible...

1.  you are competing against little kids with yarn braids on little ponies.  They will beat a bigger rider on a bigger horse... but I don't think that is your problem.

2. Time to work on your trot and I think the most effective thing you can do is lose the stirrups and work on building up tightness in your leg, feeling your diagonals and better upper body position. It's hard to say exactly where your faults are without a video but work without stirrups does a lot to correct those things I mentioned earlier (except the little kids on ponies thing).

If it's the little kids on cute ponies thing, I hate to say it but the cuteness factor doesn't get overlooked even if the rider's skills do.  Staying out of that division is the only thing you can do in that case.

I would try working without stirrups.