Generally in this class (or any other big-stage event out of the normal run) a comment of “green” is simply a quick explanation for a very obvious demeanor issue or mistake that is really apparent to the viewer without any further explanation. Tense, on the muscle, sulky, bulgy, quick, backed off, jumped too high and out of form, spooked, misunderstood a distance, late on a change…
Basically it means, “this horse is inexperienced in these bigger events and therefore has a good reason for not performing up to standard, it’s not a bad horse and it generally goes better than this”.
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And really, other than the handful of horses who have competed in that exact same class before, any horse could be forgiven for acting a little green in that setting. Night class under the lights, huge crowd of spectators, Jumbotron in both the schooling area and the show ring, busy ingate with a pedestrian bridge overhead, enormous arena full of unusual jumps, VIP tent down one side full of people eating dinner, etc., etc.
Those are all things that most show hunters do not see too often.
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@Horselove5 Are there any sports out there you know that give an educational lesson, cite all sources of background knowledge and are a glossary for every term used during the commentary of live events? I’m thinking of every single one I’ve watched and terms I don’t know, or didn’t before I looked them up, are thrown out on the regular (ice skating, soccer/futbol, football, golf, gymnastics, etc). There have been many a time when I’ve been watching a sport I’m unfamiliar with and have to look up a term. Honestly, sometimes I ask the people sitting next to me “what in the heck does that mean” and “what just happened”. Which is what you are doing now which is good… hopefully we can help answer all the questions to make your next viewing experience more enjoyable.
Now, there are some truly awful commentators in the horse world that I’ve listened to before that go off on tangents and it can take several rounds or minutes for things to get back on track to talking about the show/event. That is when I turn on the mute and just watch things with music in the background. This is fine commentary to me.
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My 13-year-old 1.30m jumper that I imported last month definitely gave a big “WTF?!” to the first 2’6" oxer with a flower box that we jumped and studies all of our hunter jumps at home. Then we go to the first U.S. show with a real jumper course and he just marches around. They really are masterful creatures of habit. 
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Here’s the winner’s handy round. Very smooth.
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I need to go back and watch the livestream, because from where we were sitting and watching live, nothing about that round looked lackluster. In person, the round that was slow and felt significantly over-scored (and I know you are not saying that about Private I’s round overall) was the handy round from Lafitte de Muze. Love that horse, but our group was really surprised at how slow they were and what they scored in spite of that.
I was there in person but didn’t really understand what happened with Liza’s second horse in the handy, where was she off course?
She forgot to do the walk portion.
So later on in the handy, one of the commentators said that she looked out the window at the ring, instead of on the screen like we were all watching, and she said that in the ring/in person the pace looked much brighter than on the video screen. So while it might not have seemed like a hand gallop on the steam, it might have been perfectly lovely in person.
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She omitted the walk and the jump after the walk. I have seen her show since she was on ponies, and I think it was the first time I’ve ever seen her go off course.
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Ahhh good to know! In person you definitely didn’t have the impression it was sluggish, our whole table felt like MBL and Private I came in and pretty much laid it down and put the pressure on. It was actually a shame to see the 4’ horses have to come back first, even though I understand why they went in that order, it would have been more exciting for those to be the last two horses to go. I hope I can get around to watching the livestream of the second round this weekend to compare!
That was lovely to watch.
How can I look up the horse’s pedigree? At some point in the near never, I would like to breed my mare for a hunter type. She moves very nicely but has some areas to improve, so I’m always trying to get more educated on bloodlines.
He is a Holsteiner, Nekton—Odessa XIV.
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For future reference, if you are a member of the USEF, you can do a horse search on their website. Many people include the breeding when they register a horse with USEF, although not everybody does that.
Sometimes there are multiple horses registered with the same name, so it’s helpful to also know who owns the horse to narrow it down to the right one.
You can also look up the horse’s USEF show record to see if he has done a lot or a little in the past.
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Can I do this with a “fan” membership? Or do I have to be a full-blown member?
I’m having trouble navigating there, if I can do it on the fan membership.
wow, gorgeous ride. Gorgeous horse, finer than what is typical in hunters lately or no?
Makes me want to take my event horse to some hunter derbies!!
You will need at least a fan membership to search. The links is https://www.usef.org/search/horses .
On a computer: Go to the top right hand side of the page and click the magnifying glass. In the drop down pick “Horses” and then you can just put the horses name in.
On mobile: On the top of the mobile page click the magnifying glass. Scroll down to the 3rd option which says “search horses”.
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There are usually free fan membership codes floating around if you do a search. Maybe try Dover22 and see if that works if you need one.
You can also use the different search features to look for competitions that interest you, or look up any member to see what horses they own or where they have shown. Lots of useful information on the site once you get the hang of it.
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I wouldn’t say he is much finer than most hunters. There’s a pretty wide range of types these days.
And that one used to be an event horse, so maybe your horse would love to try the derbies! 
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Liza actually went off course two years in a row at derby finals. After watching it happen to her again last night, I was thinking that must be such bad luck, in such big classes too.
Class act walking out patting her horses though. She seems like a good horse person in addition to being a great rider.
