HOW I SIGN OFF PONIES

First, this is NOT a "You should do it this way" page.  If anything, I want to hear from anyone reading this what you think I'm doing wrong; more than that I hope you'll compare it with what you yourself do, and--if it is far apart from me--how come more clarity in our Trainer training would make things more consistent.

PLEASE NOTE: in any of these that specify a number of runs, I do NOT count any run obviously ruined by lag.  I just forget these ever happened.

• SLALOM:  3 consecutive good runs. (Same for the other slaloms.)
• LARGE STEEPLES:  3 good runs, with no more than one bad one in the series.
• BARRELS:  3 consecutive good runs.
• CARTING: I take the pony around the farm and out the gate onto the Linden Roads, using the Kiriwhip/HUD along with typed commands.  I want to see and feel enjoyment from the pony, not just that s/he knows what whip command means what.  ALSO: I ASK the pony first whether they were trained to stop at every intersection, or to go straight unless commanded differently.  This gets trained both ways, and both have their pros and cons.
• SILENT DRESSAGE:  One complete event without faults, and showing good (not perfect) accuracy following the lines.  I ASK the pony first if s/he has any RL physical or technical limitations; I also check if they are able to easily walk backwards.  My concern is that they know the rules, and that they understand and demonstrated the beauty of the event.
• FLOWER DRESSAGE: Flower is unique, in that it can be made as easy or as difficult as you want.  I consider passing Flower a "license to learn;" a ticket for the pony to go further into more and more complex patterns.  Therefore, when I test a pony in Flower, I only go as far as seeing that s/he knows and demonstrates the rules listed on the notecard and Website.  I do enough patterns to see that the pony knows all of them and follows the lines with reasonable accuracy (just as I do for Silent Dressage).  ALSO: I will test ONLY the "new" Flower rules  adopted by SLDS and FFF several years go, since I do not understand the old "alternate" rules.
• FINAL EXAM:  In doing the final, I look primarily at the behavior of the pony. I want to see a pony that anyone at FFF will be proud of seeing around our -- or anyone else's -- farm and stable.  I then select several of the tougher items.  I nearly always include one of the Dressage events in my exam; I realize that's a personal bias.