Give me a sunny day, a good vantage point and a clear idea of the rules, and I could happily watch a Paint-Drying Competition. Toss in a compelling story line upon which to build a rooting interest and I’ll be the last one to leave the bleachers.

At last weekend’s Hampton Classic I had the first two in hand and was working hard on the others as I watched the Davenport Incorporated Amateur/Owner Jumper Classic, the first of the day’s two Grand Prix Ring events. Unfortunately, the tools of my event-watching trade (event documentation, intelligible P.A. system, informative scoreboard, knowledgeable fellow spectators) were in short supply, leaving me to my own devices to figure out how this whole horse-jumping scoring thing works.

At the risk of reducing equestrian experts into spasms of laughter, here’s what I came up with.

In the preliminary round of each competition, every ride consists of a time trial pitting riders against an Allowed Time that has been pre-established as the deadline for everyone to beat. Riders that don’t manage to do so are penalized one unit for each second (or portion thereof) in excess of the Allowed Time.

Exceeding the Allowed Time is one of the two ways that riders incur penalties. The more commonly occurring of the two results from knocking a bar down when crossing over a hurdle. Each time that happens, four penalty units are assessed.

I was never able to figure out what the units translated into. Seconds? Points? Airline miles?

The answer to that question didn’t really seem to matter though, because the only way that a rider could move on to the final “Jump-Off” round (and any serious purse money) was via a knock-down free ride that finished within the Allowed Time. Actual comparative times appeared to be irrelevant. Hey, if they weren’t going to worry about it, then neither would I.

Once in the Jump-Off, relative time matters. The winner is the fastest time without a knock-down, assuming of course that it is completed within the Allowed Time. I’m not sure what would happen if nobody in the Jump-Off had a knock-down free ride, but from the skill levels that I saw displayed, I’m guessing that never happens.

I’m sure that I haven’t fully captured the nuances of the scoring system, but by the time the afternoon’s FENDI Cup competition rolled around, I had it down to a level that was serviceable for my enjoyment needs. The overall point is this though…

This scenario is not unique – the IGTS Tour has covered plenty of events in which I’ve had to work hard to figure out the scoring system. The key difference is that those other events were generally attended by only the friends and families of the athletes, along with a smattering of aficionados of that sport. Yours truly notwithstanding, there was little call for educating the occasional rookie onlooker that strayed into the event.

The heavily-sponsored Hampton Classic however, is clearly geared toward generating an audience. And toward motivating them to return the next day, and the next year – and toward having them bring along some friends. Wouldn’t you think that it would be in the organizer’s best interests to make it as easy as possible for non-experts to understand what’s going on?

Having spent a good bit of time with sports event sponsors, I can tell you with certainty that their answer to the above is “Well, duh”.

I would love to round up the good folks that stage the Hampton Classic and bring them to the U.S. Sumo Open, where event producer and emcee Andrew Freund makes it a point to educate and inform the audience throughout the day. I’m sure he would be the first to agree with the following formula: Comprehension = Enjoyment = Repeat Attendance. I know I’m going back to the Sumo Open next year. And no, not just for the sake.

But for now, back to the action…

There were over 30 entries in the first competition of the day, and six of them managed the speedy, flawless rides needed to move into the Jump-Off round. The Allowed Time for the Jump-Off was 48 seconds, which turned out to be a mere suggestion for each rider. In fact, the sixth and final qualifying rider blistered the course in just 37.439 seconds. Katie Dinan of New York City won first prize in the $15,000 competition – and presumably, her horse Vancouver received a little extra something in the feedbag as well.

By the time this competition was over, I was fully engaged and ready for more. But for some inexplicable reason, the next competition in the Grand Prix Ring wasn’t for another 90 minutes.

What to do for an hour and a half? From the looks of things, a lot of people just went home. How much time can you spend window-shopping in the Boutique Gardens? As for me, I wandered over to a practice area, where some riders were working on techniques with their coaches. This gave me an opportunity to get up close and personal with some of the horses. Who, it turns out, are much more accommodating than most professional athletes.

Risking the loss of appropriate focus, they were even posing for pictures with fans – despite rapidly approaching competitions! And if they had opposable thumbs, I’m pretty sure they would have been Twittering to their adoring public.

I was back in my seat well before the beginning of the afternoon’s $30,000 FENDI Cup – the featured event of the day. But I didn’t have a lot of company. By the time the first ride of the event began, the grandstand was less than half full – and on one side of the ring, the VIP tents housed just a handful of people. Which was a pity, because the FENDI Cup was an impressive show.

From the beginning it was obvious that these were much more experienced riders than I had seen earlier. The Allowed Time for this competition had been increased to 82 seconds, but the course was much longer, and consisted of more challenging hurdles. There were several flawless rides early on, but then came a bit of a knock-down plagued cold spell.

During that time it occurred to me that the only thing that I didn’t like about the competition was that there was no way to “come back” from an error. If you knocked down one bar early in your ride, there was no way to make up for it by riding faster and posting a quicker time, for example. Once that first bar hits the ground, you are toast, unless by some fluke nobody has a knock-down free ride. It got to the point where, as soon as somebody had a knock-down, my mind was yelling “OK, next!”

Despite the quick start, by the end of the preliminary round only seven competitors had ridden their way into the Jump-Off. The course set-up for this, the money ride, was the best one yet, for there was a fairly wide gap between hurdles toward the end of the circuit. This created an open stretch for the horses to gallop, and since this was a pure time competition, the riders put their horses aggressively to the task.

The result – on a course where the Allowed Time was 53 seconds, four of the finalists finished flawless rides in under 40 seconds. The winning rider was Hillary Dobbs, who pulled out all the stops in guiding her horse Marengo around the course in 37.903 seconds.

You might say they were hoofing it. OK, maybe you wouldn’t, but I have no shame.