Judges Cards

Have you ever wondered what a judges card looks like? Well here is your chance. Down load your free Judges Card here.

Each line will reflect a horse’s performance. The fewer marks on the page the better.
Remember the judge can see hundreds of horses and hundreds of hunter rounds in a day so keeping track in an orderly fashion is important.

As a rule of thumb the fewer marks on the judges score card the better.

In hunters, the judge’s job is to remember every single round of that same class and place the riders and/or horses in the appropriate order. Things can happen quickly in the hunter ring and the judge must remember every round and everything that happened in every round, each judge using their own version of “short hand” to narrate a story for each round. Each judge has their own set of symbols to help them organize and place the class.

Samples of Judges Card

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Squiggly lines usually mean a poor jump

A lot of things can cause a poor jump:

1. Not going forward enough. This means behind the leg. Not fast and out of control but packaged energy. This usually results in a horse chipping in, getting too close to the jump and poor form, adding in the line of jumps.
2. Don’t have the horse’s hind end engaged (going too fast, instead of creating impulsion). Keeping the energy packaged between your hand and leg. Same as 1.
3. Loss of  balance. Going around the corner of the ring on the wrong lead for example. This usually causes leaving off of 1 leg, bad form over the fence, jump knock down and refusal because the horse is unbalanced and can’t jump.
4. Not straight or on the correct track to the jumps. 

In show ring hunters, the scoring is complicated and subjective, much like figure skating. This is because the judge has to consider the entire round. It is the entire course of eight jumps, how the horse jumps each fence and what happens in between each fence.

The best form over fences should win the class; however, the horse may have the best form over fences but not get the correct amount of strides, or may have a wrong lead or knock down a rail, therefore they won’t win.

So, while a judge could theoretically consider one jump an 8 out of 10, the judge then also has to consider the 

• Approach to that jump, 
• The lead change into the corner, 
• The pace, 
• Form, 
• If there is tension
• General turnout

Judging hunters is also about what happens in between each jump. Unsteady rhythm, wrong leads or incorrect striding can bring your mark down.