The Amazing New Dressage Test For Horses Unsuitable to Become Anything (Written 1974)

[Gary Stuart]

A classic after all these years...

The Amazing New Dressage Test For Horses Unsuitable to Become Anything By Joanna MacDonald et al
The Test

1. A. Enter at ordinary serpentine.

X. Sprawl. Salute.

2. C. Stop dead. Stare in horror at judge and shy to left.
Continue at ordinary working gallop.

3. E. Stagger left 20 or 15 or 22 meters in diameter circle or pear shape
or five pointed star. Avoid excessive crossing of legs.

4. K. Begin to halt.
Z. Keep trying.
F. You can do it.
B. Pulley rein. Give up. Continue at out of hand gallop.

5. H. Regain right stirrup. Continue at ordinary trot, bouncing.

6. MKT Change rein. Free Walk loose reins. Remove horse from judge's
luncheon table. Ask judge for leg up. Jump back into ring.

7. Z. Turn down center Line.
Halt. Grin. Scratch. Burst into tears. Leave area at free walk on long
reins, loose language.


History of the Amazing New Dressage Test
Submitted to the OADG Newsletter, July-August 1995
by Joanna MacDonald. Karyn Curtis, Ed.

1995 marks the 21st birthday of The Amazing New Dressage Test (For Horses Unsuitable to Become Anything). (There used to be dressage classes "For Horses Suitable to Become a Dressage Horse" - Ed.) Almost every dressage person in the English-speaking world has giggled over this test; it has become an anonymous classic. Hardly anybody knows where it came from. Karyn Curtis and I know. We wrote it. Here's the story:

In May 1974, some Spiritwood riders went to the OADG Spring Dressage Show at Copanspin Farm (then Marchcroft, now Riverside) in Dunrobin. There was Lorraine MacDonald, with her TBX mare Baska; my employee, Big Sue MacMillan, with her 3-year-old Quarter Horse, Flyer; and me with my 5-year-old grey mare, Azteca, known to her friends as Tattie. It was our first dressage show ever in our lives -- except for Lorraine, who had been in just one. A bunch of little kids came to help; Karyn was one of them. It turned out to be The Dressage Show From Hell. The rain came down in buckets all day without stopping. The show was held in the indoor arena with no place to warm up. We were up to our knees in mud outside. The ramp of the truck got slippery. The horses went crazy and we didn't get any ribbons.

We finally got home, soaking, shivering, miserable and disgusted. The word dressage was enough to make us throw up. We all sat around the kitchen table: Lorraine, her husband Angus, Sue, me and a lot of little kids. There was also, I remember, a bottle of wine. And we got silly and we wrote The Amazing New Dressage Test to express what we had just been through.

It went, anonymously, into the OADG Newsletter; then it went into the OVH Pony Club Newsletter; then the Corinthian (now Horse Sport) picked it up; then the Chronicle printed it; then , over the next ten years, it went into many regional U.S. dressage newsletters, to England, to California, back to Canada via Vancouver, and it's still travelling. Horse and Country printed it last year and, I ask you to believe, a friend sent it to me from Yellowknife, NWT, saying "Isn't this the funniest thing you ever read, who do you think wrote it?"

Do you want to know what happened to the cast of characters? Flyer was sold as a hunter/eventer and was re-named "Cashel" and, when I last heard, was still in retirement in Oxford Mills. Tattie achieved a respectable Medium 2/3 and ended her days as a school horse here at Spiritwood, teaching about a million people how to do shoulder-in. I don't know what became of Baska -- I last saw her picture in a tack ad for a Toronto store, modeling a blanket. Big Sue MacMillan went back to Edmonton and married a dairy farmer and has two children. The little kids all grew up; ponies were replaced by horses, horses by university, careers, husbands. Karyn came back to Spiritwood. I never left. Lorraine MacDonald is an FEI Dressage Judge for Canada! [and Barnmice member!]

[Charmaine Bergman]

I think some of the riders in Spiritwood, Saskatchewan, will be happy to read this too! They've had some of those days too, and not an anticipated "dressage" ride. Personally, I've had rides like that too...but never put such good words together to describe the undescribable. Although, I have video footage taken by CTV that showed me it wasn't my imagination, at least that one ride, it all did happen, as I thought it had.

[Laura Pillage]

The winners are the people who keep trying.. no matter what!!..thats how you become winners!! Great to have a laugh!

[Lallanslover]

Fantastic, I'm laughing my chaps off here! And the first time I've seen it (I'm in the UK)...Thanks so much for sharing it!

[Rita Johnson]

Love it, and know the feeling well!!

[Marilyn]

Hilarious - thanks for sharing and also the history. My first dressage test (at Spiritwood years ago), we trotted merrily in (before the bell) and were disqualified! Oh well, it's how you learn!
Yours is certainly a really laugh out loud story!

[lesley bruce]

Golly Gosh!! first time I've ever read that ... thank goodness I did before i died ...... what a gem .......am going to bed with a great big smile... ooooh!.. perhaps just read it one more time .. he he !!

[Sarah at HorseJobs.ca]

Been there! Done That!! LOL :)
What a great test - it always makes me smile

[gladys]

that's a great story. as a non rider I can't even imagine how mucky everyone was and wet.

[Barbara F.]

I've read this a million times - and I'm still laughing!!