First E-Dressage test

Some of you may already know that I entered E Dressage for the first time last month. – Or you might have just seen my post about how over critical I was about the test! However, this is my overview of the whole experience.

E-Dressage Experience

Choosing a class to enter and the process of entering is very easy. It’s simply a couple of clicks and entering your and your horses name. It’s then just the case of learning and riding the test.

There are a few rules you should read before filming your test. The camera has to be at C and it must not be filmed at a show are the main rules to be aware of, but there are a few others you should consider. You are also allowed to have boots on your horse, in fact, they encourage you to so that they know it isn’t footage from a show!

Sending them the footage is easy too! You can either send it to them directly on their website, or you can upload it to youtube and send them the link. So as long as you have working internet and an okay knowledge of technology you will be fine!

I got my result just days after the class closed. The placing and over all scores went up on their website with the individual feedback sheets sent out in the post. My feedback arrived just under a week after my results, which I think is pretty good!

My Results

For our Intro A test, we scored 62%. I was surprised by this result as I wasn’t too happy with our test. We scored pretty much all 6s for the movements, but with a couple 6.5s and a 7. Which, for our second ever test isn’t bad at all!

Our collective marks were: 64
Rhythm= 7 (14)
Suppleness = 6.5 (13)
Contact = 6 (12)
Rider’s Position = 6.5 (13)
Rider’s results = 6 (12)

The feedback was pretty much what I had expected “unsteady contact”, “needs to work over back”, “needs suppleness in bend”, “above the bit” and “lost outline in transition”. But I am still happy as Scottie has only recently started working on a contact and in an outline. I know these things need working on and we are slowly getting there. Even though it is a lower score than our first test, I still feel there has been an overall improvement and it might have just been a bad day or a slightly stricter judge.

I really liked their final comment:
“Talented horse and promising moments.”

It is nice to see that on both tests Scottie has done, both judges have commented on his ‘natural’ movement. The first judge called him handsome with correct paces and this judge called him talented. I feel that these comments show that he has something good already there to build on. Which only makes me think how well he could be doing this time next year!

Would I do it again?

I will definitely be entering again this month. However, as they didn’t get a huge amount in the ex racehorse classes they have changed it to an Open Class. This is where you choose out of three different tests, (intro, prelim, novice) and the combination with the highest score of all the tests wins. I don’t like this set up as much, as I was considering entering both the intro and prelim this month. However, I can enter twice in the open class for the intro and the prelim, so I might end up doing a prelim too. Although, I think I might wait until I see how I like this open class first.

Last Updated on 14/01/2022