| There are
two different kinds of blue ribbons in the Fjord world, those
received from the judge in the show ring and those granted by
officials in a Fjord Evaluation.
The first is given when your horse
places number one in a show ring and the second when your horse
scores 80 points or more in an Evaluation. Although a Fjord
owner is happy to receive the show ring blues, he or she is
ecstatic to bring home the Evaluation blues.
In a horse show a blue ribbon indicates your
horse was judged as best horse in the discipline under appraisal
in relation to the other horses in that same ring at the same
time. For example, in a line class of six Fjord stallions, your
stallion receives the blue if he is judged best of six. Even a
poor quality stallion can come home with a blue if he’s the
only one in his class.
However, at an Evaluation, every Fjord
presented is judged against the breed standard, the ideal of the
breed. There, your stallion receives a numerical mark, scored
against the "ultimate" Fjord stallion.
After the Evaluation, you will take home many
score sheets, a set from each of the two judges, laying out
exactly where your stallion excels and where he falls down.
These are significant documents, important not only to the owner
of the horse evaluated, but to mare owners choosing a stallion
to breed to as well. A mare owner can use this powerful tool to
determine how best to play to the mare’s strengths and
weaknesses. It’s a wise mare owner who asks to examine the
score sheets of a prospective stallion. In Europe, this would be
unneeded advice. There, scores sheets are examined as a matter
of course. |
Here’s
how the Evaluation process works and why I feel it’s so
important.
The most noteworthy score sheet, in my
opinion, is Conformation and Movement. If you don’t have the
form, you won’t get the function. In other words, if your
horse is not well put together, he won’t do any of his jobs,
driving, riding or draft, as well as he could.
Conformation and Movement is comprised of nine
categories for a total of 100 points: head, 10 points; neck, 10
points; body, 10 points; forelegs, 10 points; hind legs, 10
points; movement at the walk, 10 points; movement at the trot,
10 points; overall impression, 10 points; and type, 20 points.
Taking their time, the judges examine your
horse and make a determined consideration of certain detailed
items listed under each of these nine categories. For example,
under "head", the judges have eight items they must
take into account in awarding a score. These are length
(proportional), eyes (large, expressive), ears (small,
truncated), forehead (wide, slightly dished), throatlatch
(clean), jaws (strong, wide), nostrils (large), and bite. On the
Conformation and Movement score sheet alone, there are, in
total, 49 specific areas of the horse which the judge examines.
In all of these categories you must average 8
out of 10 to get a blue ribbon. It takes a good horse to get an
80.
As I stated, most horses with high scores on
the Conformation and Movement test, especially on the Movement
section, also do well in Riding, Driving, and Draft, the three
performance tests.
|
The
Performance Tests score sheets tell a mare owner an awful lot
about a perspective stallion. This can be seen in the
Introductory Driving Test. The categories are behaviour;
movement at walk and free walk on long rein; movement at the
trot; quality of transitions; halt/ stand/ rein back;
submission; impulsion; and body position. As in the Conformation
and Movement score sheet, there are many items that the judges
examine under these headings.
So what does an Evaluation blue ribbon mean to
the breed?
An Evaluation blue ribbon in Conformation
tells us this horse has been approved as an excellent specimen
of the Fjord breed. A blue in Performance tells us the horse has
something between his ears, has the ability to move well, and is
willing to learn from and work for his or her handler. All these
things are important to know and that’s why blue ribbons in
Evaluations are so important!
Postscript: Out of interest, here’s what
they do in Europe.
In many European countries, testing for
stallions is rigid. In Norway, 200 stud colts may be born in one
year but by the time they get to three years old, only 10 to 12
are licensed as breeding stallions. At five years old these 10
or 12 stallions are tested, after a six week training program,
for conformation, free jumping, draft work and riding. At the
end of this testing, only five or six will keep their breeding
licences. This is because a stallion can produce a thousand
babies in his lifetime where a mare is limited to one a year.
Should we in North America consider following
the Europeans’ lead? |