TestPro US Dressage Federation 4+

If you’re on the fence + serious about competition? Get it.

Repetition for the win! 🏆

“Repetition is the mother of learning, the father of action, which makes it the architect of accomplishment.” - Zig Ziglar

As a visual learner, I love running the pattern/s 2-3 x daily for 5 minutes max allowing me to mentally rehearse at home (at optimal times for the best outcomes). Next, I take that knowledge and increased confidence to implement in the next level tests by taking everything I learn from using this app with me in the saddle to further refine and finesse the big picture elements with my trainer’s guidance. All the while saving my horse’s mind from getting bored and her body from overtraining (by using optimal training times, duration, and frequency).

This app allows me to shave months off my upward trajectory. As an elite equestrian performance consultant and dressage competitor this is my #1 app.

Thank you!

Very helpful

During the past several years, I’ve tried out several dressage test apps. USDF TestPro (and its companion FEI Dressage) are the ones that get it right. Using audio together with visualization was particularly effective for memorization. The ability to reduce hints and delay the audio as your learning progresses is also a helpful feature.

The only thing that I would change: the app reads everything out loud including the bracketed scoring instructions. These lines of text are primarily instructions for the judge (and secondarily to inform competitors of how the referenced movements are scored and weighted). As the test instructions clearly state, the bracketed text is never read out loud when calling a test. Hearing them read out is both distracting and annoying when you’re learning a test.

I liked this app enough to gift it to my (very picky) trainer...will await her verdict.

Developer Response ,

Thank you so much for your comments. Good point about the brackets, we'll add it to the list for the next release.

Disappointed. Obnoxious & unclear considering how good the previous was

Purchased out of necessity, but very disappointing. Menu much clearer in previous, new side tabs annoying and a nuisance to make go away. Differences in movements within the same gait super unclear. All diagrams are bulky and not smooth like it’s predecessor. Slow to flip through and transitions unclear. I loved being able to quickly identify coefficients:transition points on previous app too. Prediction dots obnoxious, and distracting. The horse and patterns on previous is much easier for children to follow as this has always been a great teaching tool and helped make dressage not look so overwhelming as a written test for newbies. I feel this new app is overwhelming and seriously more difficult. Sometimes the previous movements don’t go away sometimes they do. Ugh. Why did a good thing have to change so much??? Please update it back to the EquiTests format!!! I’d pay more for it to go back!

Developer Response ,

Thank-you for your feedback, I'm sorry you don't like the new approach to test learning.

We designed the app to be interactive at the individual movement level and to respond to touches in the screen, this inevitably meant moving away from the previous format. If you prefer not to interact you can play the test through, with or without speaking, and watch it.

Designing for young people as well as adults is difficult and for that reason many of our early testers were children and their feedback was incorporated, we also have a lot of Para and Youth users.

All of the transition points have been reviewed by the USDF and the tests are accurate, you can overlay the arena with a grid of 1m squares for extra precision if it helps.

Prediction points and previous movements are also configurable in the settings menu, and can be switched off if you find them distracting.

We are continuously updating the app, and if you have suggestions about improving the way it works I would love to hear them, we can consider incorporating changes for the next release. You can contact us directly from the (i) menu.