I've kinda been sitting around scratching my head about this so I figured I'd see other people's thoughts on it.

Does anybody know how the judging mechanic works in the background? Many times, especially on Mondays, there's 5+ horses in a single show with a perfect score. Only one can have first place, second, etc. So how does the game break the ties in the background?

In the game guide, it says this:
"Tie Breakers. In all types of shows the amount of show experience a rider/horse has is used as a tie breaker, when there are equal scores. In jumping the speed of a horse is also used as a tie breaker, before experience."

But that doesn't seem to be accurate 100% of the time.

Take a Monday night show for example. In this show, 4 horse and rider teams got 100% scores. Because it's a tie, this would lead to a tie breaker. However, the riders' show experience go like this, in order from 1st to 4th:

1.456
2.346
3.352
4.272
If it was based off show experience, 2nd and 3rd would be swapped.

What about the rider's training in that discipline(dressage)?

1.305 l4
2.277 l3
3.289 l3
4.368 l4

In this specific show, the horse in 1st had 6 bars(in the green for l3), +3 extra bars, about to level up. 2nd, 3rd and 4th had 6 bars +2, likely also about to level up. Since all 4 horses already had perfect scores, does their training still affect their placing?

Does a horse's rating affect placing? (P versus W)? Is there a large amount of RF involved?

I'm honestly not sure if anybody has these answers or a hypothesis on them. I've been hyperfixated on showing for months now and I love learning new things about how the guts of the system works. It just gets a little confusing and slightly distressing when something that I think I know the workings of does not, in fact, work that way.

I'd love to hear some thoughts on this! Also if anyone is as showing obesssed as I am I always love to make new friends!