On top of the two training sessions in collaboration with Dressage Anywhere in October, to give more support to HKEF on-list dressage judges in familiarizing the online judging system, an additional Training on Judging Dressage Online was completed last night. We were happy to have Ms. Nereide Goodman and Ms. Ruth Chappell, co-founders of the Dressage Anywhere platform as the speakers again of this more practical online training session.
Nereide is a British Dressage List 1 judge, rider and trainer. She founded Wellington Riding with her husband, ran high profile shows and introduced dressage to music to the British scene. Ruth is the Operations Director of the platform and a horse lover. She managed cross-site digital development teams prior to Dressage Anywhere. Both of them shared the same vision of making the sport accessible to people worldwide and therefore established Dressage Anywhere in 2010.
A total of 11 HKEF dressage judges attended the training session. They were given video tests at levels from Introductory to Elementary to judge ahead and were required to submit score sheets. The marks and comments were compared to master judges scoresheets and created some good discussion. For example, were the medium or lengthened strides actually covering more ground in a longer frame or were they just quicker? There were also some lively discussion about the last horse’s way of going and which of the collectives should be influenced by some problems in some of the movements. As Nereide said, ‘ it is so good to share views and be able to talk about what we as judges, are looking for with such knowledgeable and enthusiastic people. Both of us enjoyed and feel privileged to be part of Hong Kong’s journey into running dressage competitions online.” Ruth assured the group that the technical side should not be daunting and that she was always always available if there were any problems.
The HKEF would like to thank the Hong Kong Jockey Club for their generous sponsor to this training session. Our gratitude also goes to Nereide and Ruth for their continuous effort and time invested in preparing the trainings for us. We hope that all attended judges found the sessions useful and gained advanced skills in judging online. The HKEF will continue to try its best to offer as many training & learning opportunities as possible to all local officials.
Best Regards,
Hong Kong Equestrian Federation
