[FLeckenAwesome]

hee hee... These are great!!

I remember one that stuck with me..... I have Roany pony still.. she is going on 30 now and was probably 20ish at the time. She's roaned out more but at the time she had muddy brown socks, muddy brown spots on her hips, and was a chestnut roan. I spent all morning bathing her, tied her in the sun to dry, tacked up, warmed up and went into the ring. Did our test... which was probably horrific, but not bad for us. Went to get my test and the judge had written "I know it's hard in Georgia (red clay) but next time try cowboy magic". I was soooooooo mad.... I had spent ALL morning bathing that horse... she's MADE that way!!! hee hee.. And to make it worse there were plenty of other DIRTY horses out there..... My friends kept asking me that weekend "Arent' you going to bathe that dirty horse"!?". Argh.....

[Timex]

'Exuberant' and 'nice jumper'. Can you guess what THAT test looked like? Lol

[yventer]

"Slightly horrid". (Judge actually said "slightly hurried" but southern teenager scribe couldn't understand her British accent ;->>>

"Happy horse" from Jim Graham when my Intermed horse squealed into a canter depart.

[rabicon]

Horses first show in Feb. So it was cold. Older horse that and done nothing for years. Judge commented at the end(was an intro test) "nice riding to get horse through test". Lol. Bad for horse but thought maybe a compliment for my riding lol

[clm08]

At a schooling show that offered both CT and pure dressage, I must have been one of the only ones doing the BN test. It had rained the night before and ring drained poorly, so there were lots of puddles. My horse is water-phobic and made sure he didn't get his hooves wet in any puddle, even if that meant wrong geometry, jumping over, or whatever it took to not step into the puddles. Judge poked her head out at the end of the test and asked me in disbelief: "Is your horse an eventer??"
Yes, it takes a lot to get him into the water jumps!

[Catie79]

I love this thread. All of these comments make me feel so much better. I usually get lots of 'elegant horse', 'talented horse', 'athletic horse', followed by variations of 'and then there's the rider'. But my hands down favorite was:

Overly expressive.

This was the very gentle and amusing comment left on a very explosive canter depart. All four feet off the ground with a big head toss when my wound up TB mare was finally given the go ahead to canter. She had spotted the cross country fences next to the ring and thought it was time to jump. The judge gets big kudos for going back in and adding 'problems due to horse being behind leg' afterward. I could see it was the judge's handwriting, as opposed to the scribe. That actually helped me get to the root of the problem and my mare now gets 7s and 8s in her canter work. I love it when the judges leave helpful notes like that.

[Equisis]

"Need more jugs", given to a rather well-endowed rider at the farm.

It was several years before it occurred to us that the comment referred to jump, not jugs. Haha!

[Simbalism]

Have done several low level CT's this past year and it has been noted several times: could show more lateral suppleness. My mare is a 17yo Tb who used to do the hunters and now we just dabble with whatever catches our fancy. Suffice it to say that we really don't "school" dressage. Having received this comment however did not stop us from winning all the CT's we have competed in this last year.

[LookmaNohands]

"Weather must make horse very happy!"-- Jack Le Goff

At a indoor combined test in the winter after it had snowed several inches--many years ago.

[riverpup]

"Zoom zoo"
This is not one that I got on a test but one that I wrote on a few tests. It was my first time volunteering to scribe, I had never ridden a dressage test and decided to get the view behind "C" firsthand. The judge had a heavy accent and I could not understand her. I tried to ask her WTF "Zoom zoo" was, as I felt kinda bad writing that on people's tests. She repeated it more slowly and louder.
She really hated having a inexperienced volunteer (I had not brought paper towels to wipe the dew off her table and chair, among other transgressions) but got a little nicer when she realized around noon that I had just about had enough and was pondering going home.

So if you have a test from a few years ago that says "zoom zoo" that might be why!

[KBG Eventer]

"Cute horse who seems to love his rider but has limited dressage potential."

This was at a recognized event too! I was going Novice. I thought it was so bizarre and funny. I'll never forget it!

[paintsrgreat]

I had a OTTB at his first show. This is way back when Novice was the unrecognized level!

Well, it was less then a great test. He did a canter pirouette at the first halt. About the third time around, I kicked and proceeded with the test. We Passaged for our free walk, Piaffed at our final halt, and I dont know how many flying changes we did during the test itself doing the canter work.

Judges comment: Either skip the lower levels and go straight to GP or give him two martinies before you enter the ring again!

[Winding Down]

You win!

I had a OTTB at his first show. This is way back when Novice was the unrecognized level!

Well, it was less then a great test. He did a canter pirouette at the first halt. About the third time around, I kicked and proceeded with the test. We Passaged for our free walk, Piaffed at our final halt, and I dont know how many flying changes we did during the test itself doing the canter work.

Judges comment: Either skip the lower levels and go straight to GP or give him two martinies before you enter the ring again!

[jackalini]

A friend of mine rode her very first Second Level test, during which her former hunter mount obligingly volunteered a flying change in the canter loop (not on the test). Judge wrote:

"Lovely test, but horse had own agenda."

[SEPowell]

My favorite was:
"Fastest test in history"

It could fit every horse I've ever ridden

[faybe]

"Horse has potential"

For a retired-from-upper-levels horse who was taking a friend Novice, but who had been a US Team horse at the WEG.

Haha I got this one, too. As a comment on my Novice Rider A test, atop DH's Advanced horse .


I rode one of the best tests of my life at Difficult Run one year, atop a very green, gangly Irish guy who was still "finding his legs". We got a 28 from Brian Ross, and I left the ring beaming... then proceeded to have one of the most awkward, half canter/half trot over all the fences, uncomfortable SJ rounds ever. We made it around, but it sure wasn't pretty! Brian was standing at the gate when I came out and he patted my knee and said, "Maybe you should just stick to dressage".

[Flying Ponies]

"Horse would excel at Speed Dressage"

from a judge I actually knew personally, lol. It was pretty accurate description of our test .

[SophieGirl23]

We got "brave ride, naughty horse" in a test in which she spent a majority of the test bucking.

19 years later she's teaching newbies the ropes and gets "great potential" the judge cracked up when we told her that the mares actually 26

[Carolinadreamin']

The following was on the test of one of the kids from our barn. We all got a laugh out of it, "nice use of creative geometry".

[Cruiser12]

OK, I'll play, mine was also the first BN test for my OTTB. He actually did quite well I thought, but had a couple of interesting moments. Her comment was, "well, he stayed in and you stayed on". I have no idea what our score was. We had fun on XC though!