stated preferences and to be wary of people who claimed
they could judge “anything”. For the record, I do not believe there is any single hobbyist who could do an expert job across the board in all our divisions at a national
level. Part of being a good judge is knowing where you
are most effective. I also managed to talk recommended
judges into coming out for a day, or to try judging at NAN
for the first time. At our national event, where people do
pay hundreds of dollars in entry fees, entrants deserve the
very best informed opinion we can offer. I do not think
that we currently offer this to NAN showers.
In the mid-90s there were fewer divisions to judge, so it
was easier to find people to fill the three-judge panels.
The judging criteria between divisions didn’t vary much,
and as a result judges could by assigned to multiple divisions. As the show continued to grow and more classes
were added, different divisions that required a different
judging criteria appeared. Someone who is well-versed in
Breyer collectibility cannot use that knowledge to judge
rare Hartlands. Judging finish work is not the same thing
as judging the anatomical realism of a piece. We expect
our judges to not only understand accurately how a coat
color is executed, but to also know if it occurs in the gene
pool of the breed assigned to the model. Some people
also feel that its important to know if the breed registry
will recognize that color.
The national show continues require more and more
knowledge from its judges, at the same time it needs increasing numbers of judges. The show has grown and the
staffing requirements have changed, but the criteria and
structure for judging staff has not. We need judges with
very different abilities than we did twenty years ago. I feel
very confident that I could have judged any class at the
first NAN and done a good job placing it. That is not true
today; there are divisions and classes I have no business
judging. Yet we are still trying to staff the show as though
all judges are interchangeable. This is just not the case.
There is the argument that a three-judge panel somehow
fixes flaws in judgement or minimizes bias (regional or
otherwise) that any one judge might have. It might do
that in some cases, but that is only one of many possible
outcomes. It could magnify an error. Or, it could result
in three judges pinning things very differently because
they all use different criteria. There are people who judge
models based on what registries state are “legal” and
“preferred”. Others accept the entire spectrum of what is
possible, no matter what a given breed or color registry
feels. So, you can have a judge that will place a more
preferred looking model with an anatomical issues over
one that is more biomechanically accurate but has less
type or flash. Some people judge with no set criteria, and
“Three...or One?”
wing it with “what they like or want to take home”. If
the three judges each use a different approach and their
cards have little in common, it is often the computer tiebreaker system that selects the champion. Unless judges
are being specifically selected to somehow balance each
other out, this idea that three is some sort of magical
equalizer is false. With this inconsistency in basic approach to the criteria, how can we possibly think that
averaging three different cards will produce meaningful
results?
We are actually surprised as a hobby when a model is
named first across all three judges’ cards. This should not
be an unusual occurrence. If we actually had a panel that
all received similar training and were all using the same
selection criteria, they all should be picking roughly the
same group of models. They might not choose the exact
same horses in the same order, but more than half the
group should be the same and placed in close proximity. There should not be the wide disparity we currently
see when looking at the top three horses on the cards
of three judges supposedly evaluating the same group of
horses. We need to stop accepting that a “crapshoot” effect is normal and expected. It is not and it indicates that
less-than-deserving horses have been awarded championships. If the goal is recognizing excellence at a national
level, then randomizing the results cheapens the accomplishment of winning, even if giving all entries a chance
regardless of merit seems “more fair”.
I wish the hobby was large enough to have three judges
in every class. Scaling up would likely resolve a lot of
the chronic issues we have with showing, but until we
can triple the number of qualified candidates, we need
to work within the limits of our resources. Requiring onethird of the current number of judges would mean that
About the author
Jackie Arns-Rossi is a
long-time model horse
hobbyist who has served
the community as a show
holder and on-and-off as
a NAMHSA officer since
1995. Jackie is passionate about performance
showing and realistic
equine sculpture. In her
spare time, she is veterinarian to a variety of species in northern New Jersey and enjoys getting celebrities to pose with the internationally-renowned Beowulf.
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