So right now I am thinking about possibly doing recognized shows next year. I have been going back and fourth about this for weeks now, and I have a feeling I will be going back and fourth about it for several more weeks after this post. Do I do it or do I not. Why am I thinking about this now when show season is still really far away? Money my good friends, money. In talking over my decision I have been asked several times what the difference is between recognized shows and those that are just schooling shows. I am going to do my best to try and explain it here, but it is one of those complicated things that you kind of need to be involved in dressage in order to understand.
So first I am going to try and explain why going recognized is such a big deal. It is a matter of prestige. Now I live in a dressage hot spot area. Most people do not. A schooling show in New Mexico is going to draw a totally different crowd from a schooling show by me. There are often 2 dressage schooling shows on the same day by me with over 10 people in a single training level class. Why? Because people want to try out dressage and USDF shows are so expensive that only people who are pretty sure they are going to do well attend them. A schooling show is not so expensive so all sorts of people with all sorts of goals go to schooling shows. That means that naturally the caliber of rider and horse is going to be below that of a recognized show.
The other thing about recognized shows is that the USDF is a national organization. That means that in theory, if I do well at a USDF show I could do well anywhere in the nation. In order to keep up the national feel of things judges are brought in from all over the country for USDF shows where as schooling shows often have judges from the surrounding area.
USDF also hosts regional championships every year, the results of which are published in the USDF connections magazine. It is one thing to say that you did well at a GMO championship, but it is a whole different ball game to say that you did well at GAIGs. For so many years I have dreamed of GAIGs, and I know that I am not alone. There is just a lot of prestige associated with USDF and hardly any associated with schooling shows. So I am sure you are asking yourself at this point why don’t I just do USDF/USEF shows? Well that is easy to answer.
For a typical schooling show in my area I pay $25 a class. I normally do 2 classes so the average show by me is $50. Some places add a $5 office fee, but even with that it is still very affordable to do dressage schooling shows by me. To go and do a recognized show around me has varying costs, but the cheapest I have found is $125 for 2 classes. That is because this show grounds does not charge any fees but the bare minimum. And because of this they are also always packed to the gills and will close entries weeks before the real closing date because they are full. I have found that by me the average cost of 2 classes at a recognized show is about $185. What is with the price difference between schooling and recognized? Well, if it were just the classes themselves you would only be paying $90-110 per show. Unfortunately, you are not just paying for classes at a recognized show. You have to pay an office fee, a USEF drug test fee, a GAIG qualifying fee (because how much would it suck to get a GAIG qualifying score and not have it count) and often some sort of haul in or show grounds fee.
So as you can tell my main hang up about recognized shows is purely financial.
For example, let me tell you about my GMO championship classes. In all of my 3 GMOs you have to ride 2 tests. The cost of championships at the local show grounds? $35. Now they did not have ribbons that were made for that event alone, but still…that is cheap! One of my other GMOs? The cost is only $60 for the 2 classes. Here they do have custom ribbons and when I went with My True Heart we got a neck ribbon for being reserve champion for the division as well as separate really nice ribbons for the class. The most prestigious and largest of my GMO’s still only costs $80 for the championship show.
For a single test at the USDF championships? $125. And that is not even including a day stall. That might not sound that bad compared to the $80 of my expensive GMO, but you are only doing a single test instead of 2. And if you want a day stall for the USDF championships that is an additional $60 bringing you up to $185 for the day without shavings or the cost to get to the show.
That being said a lot of people don’t think of schooling shows as shows at all. For example, when I mentioned my struggle about whether or not to get Phoenix registered several people told me that if I wanted anyone to think he had shown we had to go recognized because it doesn’t count if we just do schooling. Snobby, but it is the way that a lot of people think.
The other issue is that most recognized shows are multiple days. In my area it is no big deal because there are so many shows close by that you don’t have to do multi-day shows unless you want to, but in other parts of the country if you want to be eligible for anything when it comes to USDF or USEF you have to show every day a show is held.
So why do I care if I do recognized or not? Because for the first time in my life I have a horse that I think can do okay at recognized shows. I know we will be showing against Grand Prix trainers, but we were getting 64%s on our bad days. I also, for the first time ever, have a chance to go for a USDF all breeds award! Assuming that one of the Appy groups accepts Phoenix into its registry (which also costs $$) and that I do end up going recognized we would need to get 8 scores at 4 different shows from 4 different judges above 60% and 2 of those tests must be training 4. That means that at the very minimum I would be paying $1,000 on shows. Not counting all the costs of gas, day stalls if needed, training, or grooming. And I would want to do at least 5 recognized shows, not 4, just so that not every test would have to count in case we had a bad day. And all that cost is still assuming that I wont even try for GAIGs.
So logically it is clear that I should not do recognized so why should I care? Because I want so badly to do well at a USDF show. There is a Memorial Day show by me every year that I have dreamed about going to. I volunteer at those USDF shows and watch big time trainers brining their baby horses through the levels and it inspires me. At the same time Phoenix is still a baby and I am not a big name trainer so is it fair to even try? I don’t know. How much is a dream worth? And is it fair to Phoenix to have to be the one to help me get my dreams? Why do I care so much about going recognized?
I will leave you with USDF’s explaination of the difference between the two differnt types of shows. Clearly they agree with my friends that schooling shows don’t count.
“A recognized show is licensed by the USEF and recognized by the USDF and scores attained may count toward year end awards or act as qualifying for a championship or other event.
A schooling show is usually local, sometimes smaller, not recognized, and used by riders and horses to gain experience, practice test riding and get the feel of competition.”
A Horse and a Half 