Spruce Meadows' Unusual Dual Slalom

Spruce Meadows holds an unusual, if not unique, dual slalom class. It's very cool to watch, even for a jaded old fart like me.

In past years the class has included a lot of confusion, because neither the riders nor the judges are accustomed to dealing with two competitors at once. Figuring out who had won, after calculating all the faults and so forth, was complicated.

This year, I wrote software to collect the timing data off of two completely separate timing & judging systems, drive the TV graphics as well as the video walls, calculate the winner, and put a big green checkmark on the video wall as well as a twirling Spruce Meadows logo over the winner's name on the TV graphics. Worked great. The fans loved it. The judges loved it even more, as it made their jobs a lot easier.

The course.

The course map.

This traffic light controls the start.

Two horses staged at the start.





Riders competing head-to-head. The crowd goes wild.
The big green checkmark means WE'VE GOT A WINNER!!!!





Here's a video of a matchup that was won by 0.02 seconds. Sorry for the crappy camerawork.