FEI Children Dressage Tests Get "Quality Marking" Component as of 2020

Dressage

FEI

The FEI has recently updated the FEI Children Dressage Tests adding a "Quality Marking" component to the "Technical Test."

This means that judges on the short side will assess the technical part of the test while another set of judges on the long side will assess the riding skills.

FEI Sends Out Directives

It sent out directives for CDI's for Children which are effective from 1st January 2020 :

1. General.

The Children test will be judged with the aim to focus on the riding skills of the Athletes, the use of the aids, precision in the execution of the movements and harmony with the horse (presentation).

To achieve this, the Judges will have different roles depending on where they sit around the arena.

Judges on the short side will be judging the technical aspect of the test, execution of the movements, flow of the test, and the Judges on the long side will be judging the riding skills, Riders’ position and seat, effectiveness of aids, Precision, General impression.

2. FEI Children Dressage Tests.

• FEI Children Preliminary A
FEI Children Preliminary B
FEI Children Team
FEI Children individual

New in the tests in 2020:

• Except for the change of the coefficients, the Children Preliminary A, Team and Individual tests are essentially unchanged from the past.

• The level of difficulty of Children Test Preliminary B is new and has been raised, following advice of the Chefs d’Equipe at the FEI European Championship in Italy.

• The Judges on the long side will have to complete a specific Marking Sheet: See Here

3. Principles of Judging Children Classes.

Technical changes:

• The entrance has been split up in two movements to better reward the preparation of the halt and the depart.

• Specific movements which need rider’s skills such as turn on haunches now have a coefficient of 2.

• The entrance in the Individual is in collected trot and not in working trot.

• In the Marking Sheet we have added the correctness of the paces and changed the expression ‘invisibility of aids’ into ‘sensitive use of aids’.

Read the complete Directives here