Half marks in dressage?

[Stella2]

Interesting debate on this. Here is an article by Wayne Channon http://www.eurodressage.com/editor/wayne/20080118_halfpoints-sequal.html

There is also a poll on the matter on the bottom right of the British Dressage home page http://www.britishdressage.co.uk/homepage Be quick though, they only ran it for a week and it only has a couple of days left!

Anyway what do other NR people think?

[CER1389]

To some extent I think half marks in dressage would be fab. Like the article says going from a 6.5 to a 7 is a far easier leap for a judge to make, then from a 6 to 7. So they tend to err on the side of caution.

However. I ride Icelandics and have done a few competitions, and watched lots (including the World Championships). Icelandics mark in 0.5's. So not getting the gait at all would result in a 0. Getting the most perfect example of the gait every seen would be a 10 (only 1 10 was given at the World Championships this year). However when I do the beginner classes (my level!) the judges were sticking to between a 3.5 and a 5.5 which is really only 5 marks - and no different to them giving between a 4 and a 8 in dressage.

So to some extent I wonder whether half marks in dressage would work. Or rather than a judge sticking to marks between a 5 and a 7, they would just end up sticking between a 5.5 and a 6.5

[heartofrainbow]

I think it would be a great idea!

Some riders are inbetween marks! For example if not completely consistent!

A silly example would be if you had to ride a circle and got the first half perfect and the second half not so good, where would you be! With the current marking system you would be at the lower mark, however, if they had a half mark you could be inbetween and know that you are improve, but aren't quite there yet!

[Stella2]

You may be right, but as Wayne says lots of judges at the lower levels lack confidence and worry more about marking too high than too low. Hence if they are deliberating over a 7 because the movement was better than the 6 they saw earlier, but fear it may only just be a 7 and "what if I'm mis-judging it", they will often award a 6. If there were half marks, it would be marked as a 6.5.

My thinking so far (and I have only just come across the idea) is that they may do some good, and will certainly do no harm.

[karina]

I have just come across this thread about half marks and i thought that you might be interested to know that we have started using half marks at Interdressage.com. Glynis Mills who judges all our tests at the moment and who is a BD listed judge has commented that it has made judging much fairer and easier for her. She always likes to mark up rather than down and the introduction of half marks means that she can be even more positive with how she marks. Sometimes when a rider or horse falls inbetween a mark she has had to drop the mark due to the nature of the competition and a whole mark is sometimes not a true representation; dropping or adding a half mark really makes her job easier and fairer and it also gives you a greater range of marks to use resulting in less chance of equal placings thus having to decide results on the collectives.