Dressage Judges Comments,what are the worst you have received!

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Well Ballymolloy Primrose aka Rosie went to our first Dressage Competition of the season, Dressage is not our strong point we both find it really boring and quite hardwork! So off we went and did Prelim 7 nothing excitingbut its about as good as we get!

Looked at the Judges Test sheet in the Comments box which said
' I am sure a good test is just around the corner!! '

Luckily I thought it was really hilarious, it would have been justified if the test was a complete nightmare but we scored 65.5% and came 4th!

Anybody else had amusing comments?
 
Not the worst but the funniest and I thought the most spot on. My ex eventer mare would become lit up to a ridiculous degree when eventing but I lived with it as she would normally give me a double clear and a fab time afterwards. My instructor, in the end, said, you have 20 mins, INCLUDING the test before your mare blows it!

So best comment. "well sat, obviously very much looking forward to the jumping!"
 
Luci07 said:
Not the worst but the funniest and I thought the most spot on. My ex eventer mare would become lit up to a ridiculous degree when eventing but I lived with it as she would normally give me a double clear and a fab time afterwards. My instructor, in the end, said, you have 20 mins, INCLUDING the test before your mare blows it!

So best comment. "well sat, obviously very much looking forward to the jumping!"
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I had a similar comment to that when I took my 5 year old for a test, she decided to jog through the whole test, so the comments were quite rightly negative
' Horse wasn't listening to Rider today' you don't say!
 
"tactfully ridden! Your horse shows promise for the more advanced movements"


This was on our first dressage test prelim 4 i think. It was in the big arena at hartpury and everything was terrifying. cue canter half passing away from flower pots. turning on the spot at high speed ect.
I thought her comment was hilarious!! great judge
 
My very first dressage test, with benson. The judge gave us a mark of 38%, and overall comment was neither horse nor rider should ever attempt dressage again. Nice, eh!!!
 
benson21 said:
My very first dressage test, with benson. The judge gave us a mark of 38%, and overall comment was neither horse nor rider should ever attempt dressage again. Nice, eh!!!
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Nothing like encouragement from the professionals is there!
On a slightly different note, I recall a time I went XC schooling with a 'professional' event rider, I asked a question about how to approach a fence, she said 'how about you trying riding her properly that would help!' and I paid £70 for the privledge never again!
 
I have recently had 'well sat' in two consecutive tests from different judges (same horse).

Best one ever (after the mare I was riding jumped out of the arena and then straight back in during a canter circle) was 'jumps not required in this movement'.

Oh, and lots saying 'seemed rather tense today'.
 
Not worst exactly but quite amusing ..."some very promising work here today and also some exciting moments!" - those being when my baby horse bucked on every canter transition and for a finale, right up the centre line skidding to a halt....:o:o:o:rolleyes:
 
The only amusing comments have been for Topaz, who see no point to flatwork when you could be doing far more exciting things like jumping, jumping, some wizzing through the air and yet more jumping!
So our first dressage test as part of a ODE we got "lovely one time changes but unfortunately not required", "nice elavation upon re-entry to the arena" and "Exploded into canter" ...I took them as positives, well if you dont laugh.....
Her lastest trick in the middle of a dressage test, was to just pop a random canter in just whenever she felt it was needed to jazz things up a bit! Think the comment for that was something like "beautiful transition but canter not required for another 3 moves".......
The shame of it! I should really do more dressage tests if we want to really event but think I need more encouragement than Topaz.
x
 
I had another interesting experience when we were doing our Free Walk on a Long Rein, Rosie was stretching down quite nicely, i thought hey we've nailed this move as this is a major weakness on our part, as she stopped to scratch her leg and I nearly went over her neck ,hence why she was stretching so nicely!
No comment from judges but very red face when I walked out the arena!
 
0 - movement not required, followed by 'hope you are ok' in the box at the bottom of the sheet.

achieved by being bucked off over x in what should have been a simple change. The horse was 18.2, and all he did was a big step into canter, I flew over his head, he stopped dead and lowered his head to my chest, I was flat on my back looking up his nose.

A funny one was 'never seen a horse go down the longside in so few steps'. He was a big boy !! and the 20 x 40 arena was a bit of a challenge.
 
Think the best one I had was with my young welsh mare who I took to a walk and trot test, she spent most of it on her front legs or rushing - comment was - bucking hell, don't think this horse likes dressage! I had to agree and never subjected her to another test again!
 
hmmm at our first intro away from.home....

oh dear it wasnt your day. rory was all over the place, i cant think of anything to say that could help you!

needless to say i felt a bit discouraged!!
 
'Wow! Well survived!' Was my 'best' comment! Second ever test on 17hh warmbloods who jumped in and out over the boards the whole way round and did a perfect 10m circle in reverse!
 
Two memorable ones, for my first ever ODE I rode a nightmare pony that had come into the riding school. (Didn't have my own, helped at weekends in exchange for lessons) She was very tricky, worked beautifully on her own but napped and bucked for England in company. I asked to take her to the ode as I loved her like any 12 year old would, and spent the whole test sitting the bucks or kicking on through the napping. Got the comment "Marvellous try on a difficult pony, sit deep in the saddle and try and keep your hands still." Eliminated first fence sj, eliminated first fence xc. The following week she dumped someone badly in the yard and went for dogmeat. This was 40 years ago when people didn't think about the back man or the dentist, I've always wondered what might have been if she had been born today instead, she had major issues and had come onto the yard as a last resort.

On a happier note, tried a few dressage tests on my irish hunter mare a few years ago who loved her jumping and just about tolerated flatwork. Think short coupled, punchy chesnut mare. She wasn't in any pain, just found it very boring. She would regularly rush, get very tight and think of anything to spook at to evade the constraints of the arena. Judges comment was "I could tell by the look on her face as she came down the centre line she was plotting something!" Never met the judge before but we were both giggling by the end of the test!
 
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"Your handsome horse is not quite ready for a dressage test yet"- he was 25 or so. It begged the question when exactly he was going to be ready tbh... (answer- never!)
 
Probably the funniest comments we got came from the same test (Intro A). ‘Misunderstanding over X’, after my little mare decided to give me airs above the ground during trot, and ‘Pony MUST (capitalised and underlined twice!!) learn to listen more!’, probably in response to the fact that she tanked round with her nose in the air, yelling her head off the whole time. I also got ‘Well done for persevering’, which I thought was nice.* After seeing that test you’d never believe that my mare is normally a quiet, well behaved little thing who’d just decided that the other pony in the mirrors was a scary, Fjord eating monster…
*
 
Not terrible but had "horse is a bit distracted today" , only distracted to the judge and writer opening their car doors as I was trotting up the centre line...then hanging a jumper in the door....then somebody shouting for the sheep in tge field next doir for their dinner.,,, cue a massive flock appearing on the horizion...have to say wasnt my finest test!
 
Spud's latest one had the judge laughing from the moment he came down the centre line, which is never a good sign. He will do a nice test if you can get him through the whole thing without him realising it's a dressage test. He was fine in the warmup, but just before he came into the main ring you could see the penny drop: 'This....is a fecking dressage test....'. So he took a deep breath, threw all his teddies onto the floor in fury and then it was 'enter at working flounce and tranter right'.

The judge said 'Well!!!!! If you could only harness all that energy you would have a lovely ride!'.
 
Not very interesting, once had "nice horse, totally ignoring you today" and "test frantic in places". I also once retired from a test after my horse had a napping phase, I made a couple of errors, left the arena a couple of times, judge politely wound down window and asked if we'd like to give up. I did!!
 
I've had "why is that nice horse in a drop noseband" - er because at that stage she wasn't a nice horse without a drop noseband.

"Horse looks tense" - you don't say, we arrived not having been told what time the test was, went to find out and were told it was in five minutes time - so we still had to unload horse, tack up and I had to get dressed, which we managed and trotted away from the lorry and straight into the arena. They thought the horse looked tense, they can't have been looking at the rider!

"You need to relax your arms more". Horse and I were doing our first ODE, he'd just seen the first horses going XC past the back of the ring and wanted to join them. He cut two minutes off the time the test should have taken and had I relaxed my arms more we'd have been going XC in full dressage rig without stopping to finish the test.
 
I got "dressage is a sport" :D, mare was a bit dozy and I wasn't going to walk her up too much as this was our second test and she had ditched me on the first (my foot had hit the fence and she had exploded).
 
I have had "horse shows promise but rider doesn't have much hope" I don't put myself through it these days, in fact if I do get on a horse I just hack in walk only. Especially as a riding instructor has also said there isn't much point in me riding.
 
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