𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬

March 27, 2022

I have heard something from commentators of our sport lately that has started to really rub me the wrong way, saying that the score doesn’t matter at a reining, making sure that the judges got the riders in the correct order does. And my argument is this: if you don’t get the scores right then how can you say that you got the order right? The NRHA judging system is world renowned for its fairness to all competitors. If you ride in and turn a +1,then no matter who you are or how the rest of the run goes, your score card will reflect that +1. The same if you mark a penalty in a maneuver. Reining has a very clear set system for judges to follow, they are highly trained to be able to mark each run correctly, and while there is some room for opinion, the best part about the NRHA judging system is that it does not allow much variation based on opinions. So the score matters to get the order correct. A simple half of a point on a total score can be the difference between qualifying for a major event, a pay check, a professional keeping a client or going out of business, someone making or missing the finals. The score matters a lot, and it has repercussion effects down the line. It might not be important to you, but making the L1 finals at an event might be the pinnacle of someone’s riding career and we owe it to every owner, breeder, and competitor to get their score correct when they walk in the pen, because while they might come out 30th place, being able to say you are an NRHA Futurity finalist is a big deal to many people, and they paid the same amount of money as the Futurity winner to be there. As the wife of a trainer I can tell you that we watch the judging closely. How a judge marks my husband is literally a determining factor in our livelihood. A horse who was over marked at one show with another trainer who then comes into our barn and improves, but marks a worse score on its next run, even though the run was better, is very hard to explain to a client. I can tell you numerous stories of trainers losing clients who were very important to their business all because of the score on a run, of owners who gave up on the industry and walked away, of discouraged youth and non pros who decided not to further pursue the sport of reining, of sellers losing ten of thousands of dollars on a sale. And it breaks my heart. We as an industry owe it to ourselves, and our fans to make sure that to the best of our ability every horse receives the correct score that it earned from its run that day. Asking an NRHA judge to remember 100 or more runs to try and get the order correct is the foundation of why the NRHA scoring system was created in the first place, and we as an industry owe it to guys like Dick Pieper and John Snoblen who helped to come up with our current system of judging, first implemented all the way back in 1985, to continue to get the scores right, and to continue to implement and build upon our great judging system. A judge’s job is hard, staring at so many runs each day at these big shows is hard. Our focus should continue to be on getting the scores correct, and making sure our judges have fair working conditions to stay at their best, to make sure that they can get the scores correct. After that the placings will fall where they should based on the scores, and the only person who should be worried about the order of the placings is the show secretary making sure the scores have been calculated correctly and the placings are in the right order according to those scores. So next time you hear someone say “the score doesn’t matter, the order does” ask them how they can know that the order was correct if the focus wasn’t being put on the scores? #nrha #scoresmatter #reining