Effect of the judge and definition of the trait for horse free jumping evaluation

Abstract. The presented research investigates the effect of the judge on scores for horse free jumping skills, the agreement of judge's scores and relations of these scores with measured jumping parameters received by video image analysis in order to recognise judging preferences and trait definition. The investigation was based on a group of 32 warm-blooded stallions that were judged in free jumping by six experienced judges in five routinely evaluated jumping traits. Simultaneously horses were filmed during jumping and linear jumping parameters were measured. Additional jumping parameters were calculated to describe the jumping style in a more detailed way. The influence of the effect of the judge was estimated by analysis of variance, the relationships between judges' notes and jumping parameters by analysis of correlations. The effect of the judge was statistically significant for all traits. The correlations between individual judges' notes were not equal. The notes for particular traits were in some cases more correlated with other traits like with notes for the same trait. Mean notes for evaluated traits were correlated above 0.6 between each other. Correlations between judges' notes and measured jumping parameters were low and medium. Some jumping parameters were correlated with all traits whereas some parameters were not correlated at all. Received results showed that the definition of the traits evaluated by judges is not the same for all of them. However, for all judges the distance of landing, elevation of the body and lifting of front limbs were the most important parameters of the jump.