4 Differences In Campdraft Judging And Why It Matters

There is nothing worse than thinking you’ve had a ripping run only to be given a crappy score and miss out by one point for the final, yet again… damn. As much as we all like to play the worlds smallest violin to ourselves, there’s an area for growth here if we look hard enough. Campdraft judging can vary immensely from judge to judge and we as the competitor need to expect that. The best competitors will understand who is judging, listen to their address at the beginning of the event and try to show the judge what they want to see. Every judge has different things that they look for in a Campdraft course and a lot of them don’t share the same views. I’m going to get into depth on a few of the major differences in judging that you should consider before going out for a run.

Horse work vs Course work

This is a great one that has sparked many debates over the years and is commonly resurfaced. The question is should you give more points for a fast run that looks a bit wild i.e. horse throwing its head and a lot of reefing and kicking or a slower neater run with the horse being more relaxed and responsive to the rider. There is no right answer unfortunately except in the particular judge’s eyes. All we can do is listen to the judges address, see how they are judging certain runs before us if we have that luxury and think “how does this judge ride his or her own horses” usually gives you an insight on what they’re looking for.

70 down vs 1 up 1 down

Each judge is given the responsibility of creating and managing their own way of coming up with a score within the 26, 4, 70 framework. This being said there are two different ways of judging that are most common and should be considered even if your not sure how a particular judge is scoring. 

The 70 down method is when the judge starts at 70 points and works their way down, taking points away for any slip ups and never adding any back on as they work their way down. This method puts a great amount of onus on the first peg as the first indicator of a score and should be ridden as such. The second most common method is that of the 1 up 1 down method which starts with the competitor on a 60 and gives and takes points away as you go around the course. This method favours a course that is neat with similar circles and a good finish through the gate as the judge is commonly likely to try and give you points that they had been holding if you finish well.

Cow up vs keep the flow

Without being racist the difference with this one is generally Stock horse judges vs Quarter horse judges, the stock horse judges generally want to see a lot of motion and flow in the camp not so much caring who is doing the steering i.e. horse or rider. Whereas the Quarter horse judges like to see a horse cowing up and shadowing a cow and aren’t generally as worried if the cow is constantly in motion or not as long as the horse is watching. This one is easy look at the kind of horse they are sitting on.

When the cow is clear vs when you put ya jocks on this morning

The last thing I’ll bring to your attention is that even though the judge isn’t supposed to begin giving you a score in the camp until you have a beast clear from the mob. About half of the judges out there are judging you as soon as you walk into the yard. This means whether you cut your beast clean and calmly, acknowledge the judge or your horse is dirty, it all goes to your score when you leave the camp. We can’t change this so you just need to be courteous, clean and not root around like a pig looking for truffles. Have a plan and a cow picked out before you go in and make it happen.

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Cover Photo from the ACA website.