My Method for Memorising a Complex Eventing Test in Under Two Hours

There is a particular kind of panic that creeps in the week before an event when you realise the dressage test you printed off still looks like alphabet soup. Between work, school pick-up, the trip across town to the coach, and the inevitable meltdown when Archie decides to spook at a plastic bag in the warm-up arena, finding time to actually learn the test feels impossible. After years of scrambling at events like the Melbourne 3DE at Werribee Park and the Sydney International at Horsley Park, I have finally landed on a method that gets a complex test locked into my brain in under two hours of focused work.

The trick is not magic, and it is certainly not talent. It is a sequence of small, deliberate steps that engage different parts of the brain — visual, verbal, kinesthetic — so the pattern sticks without me needing to recite the whole thing like a poem. Whether I am prepping for a Preliminary test at Boneo Park on the Mornington Peninsula or an Elementary outing at a smaller ground on the NSW South Coast, the same routine runs in the same order. Below is exactly how I do it, with the small Australian touches that keep the system grounded in real life between school zones, traffic on the M1, and a million other things that try to steal my focus.

Breaking the Test into Manageable Chunks

The first mistake I used to make was trying to memorise the whole test as one long sequence. Twenty-something movements, plus the halt and salute at the start and finish, becomes a blur when read from a printed sheet in the float park. Instead, I chop the test into four or five chunks based on the geometry of the arena. Each chunk starts and ends at a recognisable marker: a corner, the letter A, the quarter line, or a transition between gaits that already feels familiar to my body.

For a typical Novice test, my first chunk might be the entry, the working trot down the centre line, and the first circle. The second chunk covers the corner movements and any lengthened trot. The third chunk is usually the canter work on one rein before changing across the diagonal. The fourth chunk holds the second canter, the simple changes, and the final stretch. The fifth is the free walk on a long rein and the final halt and salute. Each chunk has its own little shape in my head, and once one is solid I move on.

This approach mirrors the way Equestrian Australia levels are usually constructed, with movements grouped around letters and arena markers rather than spread evenly across the page. By respecting those natural divisions, I am not fighting the structure of the test. The arena does most of the work for me, and Archie knows the geometry better than I do after a few schooling sessions at home.

Walking the Test on Foot Before Riding

Before I sit on Archie for a single trot stride of the test, I walk it on foot in a 20 by 40 or 20 by 60 arena. I time this walk using a stopwatch on my phone and count my steps out loud. At home I lay out four cones in the corners and use whatever markers are already there, usually a pile of letters from a schooling kit, to walk the actual lines I will ride. When I am at a venue the day before, I walk the test on the competition arena itself if the ground is open, or at least in a similar-sized grass arena nearby.

Walking serves two purposes. First, it gives my body a physical memory of distances, so I know roughly how many strides it takes from K to A on the diagonal, or how big a 10-metre circle really feels in a real arena. Second, it lets me rehearse the spoken calls. I say, "Trot, working trot, circle left 20 metres, rising, change the rein, diagonal, let go and let him stretch," out loud in the same tone I will use with my caller or in my own head. By the time I have walked the test three times through, I have practised the words, the geometry, and the timing all at once.

Australian venues make this easier than they might elsewhere. Most grounds I compete at, including Boneo Park, SIEC, Werribee, and the Tasmanian Equestrian Centre at Carrick, have open arenas that are accessible to walk before the day of competition. I always bring a pair of old runners and a clipboard so I can stand at A and look down the centre line the way the judge will. That single act of looking at the same view the judge sees tends to anchor the first chunk of the test more solidly than any other exercise.

Drawing Diagrams and Visual Markers

Once I have walked the test twice, I sit down at the kitchen table with a fresh copy of the test sheet and a stack of Post-its. I draw a quick diagram of the arena and sketch each movement as I read it, using arrows for the direction of travel and little stick figures for circles, half-circles, and serpentines. I label each transition with the gait and any letters that matter. The diagram ends up looking like a treasure map, but it is a map that matches the geometry my legs already remember from the walking session.

Then I add memory cues. For each movement I write a single word or short phrase in the margin, such as "bubble" for the circle that needs to be round and bouncy, "deep" for the corner where I want to push Archie into a deeper frame, and "wait" for the half-halt before the canter transition. These words are not on the official test. They are mine. They link the visual diagram to the feel of the movement, so when I am in the arena my brain only has to recall one short word rather than a sentence.

This is the step where I save the most time later. If I forget a movement during a schooling session, I look at the diagram on my phone and the cue word pops back. Because I drew the diagram myself, the layout matches how my brain already stored the walk-through. The combination of the diagram and the cue words usually takes thirty minutes, including the time I spend re-writing the cues in a neater version I can glance at while tacking up.

Recording and Listening Back

The night before the test, after the kids are in bed and the kitchen is finally quiet, I record the test on my phone. I sit on the lounge with the test sheet in front of me and speak the test in real time, calling out movements in the same rhythm I expect to ride them. I leave pauses for the gaits and the transitions, and I add my own voice prompts such as "now," "breathe," and "half-halt" wherever I know my brain tends to drift.

I then listen back three times. The first listen is at half speed while I am folding washing. The second listen is at normal speed while I do the dinner dishes. The third listen happens just before bed with the lights low. By the third listen, the test plays in my head almost like a song. The next morning in the float, I listen once more on the way to the venue. By the time I have parked at the showground, the test is sitting in a comfortable groove.

Recording works well because Australian competition days are loud. There is always someone blasting music from a ute, kids tearing around on motorbikes behind the warm-up arena, a commentator doing the morning announcements, and Archie himself snorting at a flag. I cannot memorise the test in a quiet room and expect to recall it in that noise. Listening to my own recorded voice cuts through the background chaos because the cadence of my own speech is a stronger signal than the venue noise.

Technique	Time Required	Best For	Limitation
Walking the test on foot	30–40 minutes	Geometry, distances, timing	Tiring on hot days, especially inland at venues like Albury
Drawing diagrams with cue words	25–35 minutes	Visual learners, fast recall of movement order	Easy to forget cues if not reviewed
Recording and listening back	15–20 minutes to record, 30 minutes for repeat listens	Auditory recall, fighting venue noise	Needs quiet time to record, battery drain on phone
Riding sections with a caller	30–45 minutes per full run	Kinesthetic memory, last-minute confidence	Requires a trusted caller, time to coordinate

Riding Sections with a Caller

After two full schooling sessions where I ride the test with my coach calling out the movements, I switch to riding it with a caller. Usually my coach agrees to do this once at a clinic, and I rope in a friend from the local riding club for one final session at home. The caller reads the test aloud as I ride, and I respond as if I were on my own. If I miss a movement or take the wrong line, the caller pauses and we restart from the previous marker.

This step is what locks the test into my body. The kinesthetic memory of turning down the centre line, posting on the correct diagonal, and applying the half-halt at the right moment is far more reliable than any mental image. By the time I have ridden through the test twice with a caller, the movement pattern is no longer something I am thinking about. It is something my body does in response to the letters.

In Australia, getting a caller often comes down to whoever is sitting on the truck next to you at the event. I have had Pony Club mums call my Elementary tests, my coach call my Novice tests, and once a friendly stranger from Wagga Wagga call my Advanced test because she had memorised it from years of watching her daughter ride the same level. The generosity of the eventing community is one of the things that makes this sport work here, especially at the smaller grassroots events where the prize pool is a ribbon and a bag of feed.

The Night Before and Final Mental Rehearsal

On the night before competition, I run through the test one final time in my head. Lying in bed with the lights out, I imagine the arena, the judge in the car, the letters around the perimeter, and Archie beneath me. I ride the test in my imagination in real time, including the moments where I half-halt, change the rein, or push him forward into a lengthened stride. I feel the reins in my hands and the rhythm of the trot. I count the beats of the canter.

This final mental rehearsal typically takes fifteen minutes and cements the sequence without tiring either of us. By the time I fall asleep, the test feels like a place I have already been. The morning of the event, I avoid overthinking it. I drink my coffee, walk Archie once around the venue to let him look at the sights, and trust that the work is already done. When the judge rings the bell and I halt at A, the test begins on its own.

The two-hour method is not a shortcut to good dressage. Archie still needs to be balanced, supple, and responsive, and that work happens long before I ever pull out the test sheet. What this method gives me is the calm that comes from walking into the arena without that horrible blank moment after the bell. Whatever happens in the test after that is up to my training, my preparation, and the horse beneath me.