have to vent about 4-H patterns

My two older kids are in 4-H and we have our achivement day on June 10th. Because it is a small club with mostly beginner riders, they already have their patterns. The Western Horsemanship pattern happens to be the 1st Western Riding pattern. These kids hardly know what a lead is, never mind expecting them to do a pattern with that many flying changes. And one of our instructors picked the pattern, after we asked them to keep it simple and quick cause we have time constraints. I feel bad for these kids. It's like setting them up to fail.
The original trail pattern included walking over a tarp. Not very safe. And quite aa few simply wouldn't be able to do it. We nixed that. And instead of a turn around in a box, the instructions call for a roll back, which in my mind is a 180. But they have to come out facing in the same direction they entered.
The showmanship pattern is confusing. You start off by walking away from the judge, walk a circle, then trot back to the judge and set up. I'll try to find a way to post it, cause it doesn't really work. And it takes forever, once again we still have time restraints. And there is no pivot. Most of the kids don't understand it and can't walk their horses in a proper circle to save their lives. These are true beginners and for most of them, Achievement Day is the only show they'll ever go to.
I just can't understand why the people who taught these kids all year would expect them to be able to complete these patterns. Especially with only 4 lessons left.
Ah well, what can I do, sorry about the venting.

Yuck. Our 4-h shows they actually coach the kids along so they do well.

You don't want kids getting hurt or too frustrated, and it sounds like that's what these patterns will do. At least you got rid of the tarp idea! If the pattern is too hard I think it will discourage many kids and their families from participating in 4-H. If the kid really screws up his pattern he may think he's not good enough and just quit, when really it was the fault of the too difficult pattern. And an unexperienced mom or dad watching might think their kid just isn't good enough for this and get them into something else.
Better that the pattern be a little too easy at this stage than too hard. Lots of riders don't have a flying lead change on their horse. And western riding patterns are too hard and long to be a horsemanship pattern!! Most successful horsemanship patterns are short and to the point. A judge can see enough subtle differences in the riders to be able to place them correctly.

Yeah that sounds really tough. Even the Division III patterns aren't that hard... and that's the older division!

We had a lesson on Sunday and what we did was I pretended to be judge and we ran through SMS, Horsemanship and trail. I changed the SMS to 2 cones. Walk to cone A. Stop, set up for inspection. Do 180 degree turn and trot to cone B. Go back into line. All the kids were able to do it.
For Horsemanship I had them do a large circle to the left, then small circle to the left. Come through center, same thing to the right. Stop at center, back 4 steps. they could chose to jog or lope, depending on wht they were comfortable with. Very few of them even managed to make a circle, but once I got on a horse and showed them what I wanted, they got it.
I left the trail pattern alone. Most still can't get the gate, but they sure did try.
The head leader is gonna talk to the instructor about changing the patterns for achievement day.