By MARLEY LIEN-GONZALEZ
As stated by USEF, “a Presidential Modification is granted in cases of extraordinary, special circumstances” and expedites the typical rule change or creation process. One circumstance presented to the federation recently was significant enough to compel USEF to slightly alter a rule effective December 1, 2024, allowing Jumper ring Judges the option to consider unofficial, private videos to verify decisions about scoring when and if official recordings are not available.
The general rule section states that “Judges are barred from reviewing video footage or other electronic media when making field of play decisions, unless stated otherwise in the breed or discipline division rules” (GR1219). Judges of the Jumper ring qualify for this exception as (JP144) gives permission to the Senior Judge of a class, by themselves or with other judges from the panel alongside them, to “view an official video recording of all or part of a class” in order to clarify or verify decisions related to the scoring of a competitor. The Senior Judge may even make corrections or changes to the class placings, “provided [the video] is made available within 60 minutes after the results are announced.”
The update is both a change for section (JP144) and an exception for (GR1219), which currently holds that “if Judges are permitted to review video footage under breed or discipline division rules, only original unaltered official video footage is permitted to be reviewed.”
Official video footage is classified as “recordings made by the designated host broadcaster and/or a designated official video recording company as named by horse show management” (GR150).
Coming 12/1/2024, if official video is not available (because the horse show doesn’t provide it, or extraneous circumstances), a personal, unaltered video may be taken under consideration of the Senior Judge, if they use their judgment to deem it appropriate, and used to the same extent as an official video would be.
Though video review by Judges is not frequently utilized, it can be a helpful tool in determining, for example, if a rail down is by the fault of a horse and rider or by an external force like the wind–or if anything else penalized as per the Table of Jumping Faults (JP145) can be excused due to other special circumstances. However, USEF clearly states that under no circumstances can a video, official or not, be used to record time. Even if the timers were faulty, “a video may never be used to establish the time of a round” (JP144).
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