A Moscovite, the first in her family to meet the world of horses, Irina Mcnamee trained with the world’s greatest Fei judges. Her passion for dressage also grew from meeting Olga Soboleva, when she was a teenager. Dressage.it had the pleasure of interviewing her…
How and when did you meet horses? And where and why dressage?
«Since I remember myself I was absolutely fascinated by horses. This fact is absolutely unexplainable, because nobody in my family had anything to do with horses. When I was growing up it were still Communist times, there were no private Equestrian Clubs or private horses in Moscow, only several State equestrian clubs and all horses there belonged to the government. It was very difficult for a child, whose family was not involved in equestrian sport, to start taking riding lessons. Thus there was tremendous competition between children to be accepted in to these State riding schools. We had to pass special physical training exams. I was not very athletic, so I kept on failing these exams. Luckily after trying several times I was accepted into the so called “Club for children, who love horses” in the Equestrian Centre “Bitza” (a huge riding club in Moscow which was built especially for Olympic Games in 1980). Needless to say that I was overwhelmed with joy! So my new “life in the stable” began. For many years I trained in the Equestrian Centre “Bitza”. There was nothing else that I wanted to do except being around horses. The head of our children club was a dressage GP rider and a very talented trainer Olga Soboleva, who noticed my horse-obsession and selected me and 2 other girls to be her assistants. She taught us how to take care of horses, trained us dressage, allowed us to ride and compete on her dressage horses. As Olga was a dressage rider and I wanted to be exactly like her, I started loving dressage and this grew into a very strong life-long feeling».
When did you become a dressage judge?
«Our Federation always needed English speaking scribes to work at the international dressage competitions, so I helped at all competitions and seminars. While scribing for legendary, super experienced and knowledgeable judges such as Dieter Shuele, Gislain Fouarge, Enzo Truppa, Katrina Wuest, Stephen Clarke, Mariette Withages, Wojtek Markowski, Eric Lette and others, little by little I started learning from them and soon realized that the process of judging is very interesting for me and that I also want to become a judge. So I joined our national education system for dressage judges. After becoming a national Grand Prix judge and having great support of my Federation I dared in 2009 to try to pass an exam to become an international 3* judge and it was successful».
How did your career develop?
«I was very lucky and my judging career developed quicker than I expected. I felt a lot of support from many of my wonderful colleagues, who helped me to learn, grow, improve and also to be invited to judge international shows. When you are a young judge and nobody knows you, it is quite challenging to get invitations. In 2013 I successfully passed an exam to judge young horses. In 2013 I became a 4* judge and in 2017 I was promoted to a 5* status. Meanwhile I was judging many different wonderful CDIs, including European Championship for seniors, two World Cup Finals, two European Championships for U25, several European Championships for youth, World Breeding Championship, etc. For me every show is very special and unique, has its own highlights and leaves wonderful memories. Every show offers a fantastic judging and learning experience».
Do you have any concern when you are going to start judging a class?
«I enjoy judging very much, so I cannot say that I “worry” in a negative sense, because I trust my knowledge and experience, but as I want to do the best job possible, I would describe my condition as being alert and concentrated».
Your hobbies?
«I still ride, not for competition, but for pleasure and to stay fit, so spending time in the stables is always super enjoyable time for me. I love travelling and sightseeing. Also I love dogs, aquarium fishes and house plants».
In your opinion how should be the relationship amongst judges and other stakeholders (riders, trainers, sponsor, media…)?
«I think that we should try our best to increase cooperation between different stakeholders groups. All the parties in our sport (riders, trainers, judges, media, etc.) can learn so much from each other. Only working together we can succeed in quite a challenging modern day task – popularization of dressage, increasing public appeal without jeopardizing the fundamental characteristic of the sport and welfare of the horse. I think that we are living in a very exciting time, when dressage is progressing in so many fabulous ways! The quality of riding of the best combinations is absolutely mind-blowing! We all should work together and do our best to help the further development, globalization and popularization of dressage!».
Any suggestion to Fei regarding judges?
«I have great respect towards the significant work that has already been done by the FEI Dressage Technical Committee and members of the FEI Education Group. I think that all the latest innovations in judging have proven to be very effective! Such as:
- Introduction of half points;
- having 7 judges at Championships;
- having Judges Supervisory Panel (JSP) at major Championships and WC Finals;
- having a JSP member at the youth championships;
- the 5% rule;
- creating Judges Advisory Group (JAG);
- using E-dressage protocols;
- the DOD Freestyle system;
- Introduction of on-line dashboards for judges and an ongoing statistical review of all judges’ data, undertaken by the JSP, who report to the JAG. This is both a monitoring role for the sport and a supportive role to individual judges, who are offered guidance by JAG;
- having on-line virtual seminars, etc.
I totally support the fact that FEI is now devoting so much attention to education of officials. I believe that non-stop education is the key to quality judging, we all have to take seriously the need to remain up-to-date and effective. We have a new FEI Education System for officials starting 2022. What I think could also be a very interesting project for the future is to convert the Dressahe Judges Handbook to on-line format and also an introduction of a Video Handbook to visualize how movements/gaits should be shown in order to get a certain mark as well as video examples of marking fundamental mistakes in dressage movements. But of course this will be a very big and difficult job, a major project, which will take a lot of efforts and time. But in the end I believe this will be an amazing tool for education and very beneficial for all groups: judges, riders, trainers, media, spectators, etc»
