Horse

Dressage Scoring

The goal of a dressage competition is to determine whether each rider has their horse under control and whether they are able to perform the required test elements. During a dressage test, a horse and its rider execute several dressage movements in a predetermined and formalized order. Dressage tests are divided into short exercises, each of which is awarded a mark out of ten from the following scale:

Excellent = 10
Very good = 9
Good = 8
Fairly good = 7
Satisfactory = 6
Sufficient = 5
Insufficient = 4
Fairly bad = 3
Bad = 2
Very bad = 1
Not performed = 0

Judges accompany scores with overall impressions and comments that must account for or correlate to their numerical scores. Because horses and riders are scored on a universally accepted scale rather than relative to their competition, each pair of horse and rider perform at different times and are not compared to one another as a part of scoring itself.

The officials who evaluate dressage trials are known as the jury. International competitions are judged by a five panel jury, while lower level dressage classes have either two or three judges on a jury. The jury evaluates uniformity of gaits, impulsion, general standard of riding, attentiveness of the horse, confidence of the horse, effectiveness of aids, and standard presentation of the horse and rider.

Though the jury judges the presentation of the horse and rider as well as their actual movements, the manner in which the tests are performed is the most important consideration. The extra weight placed on these elements is reflected in the protocol for scoring; more important considerations have a coefficient of two or three by which the score is multiplied so that it will have a greater impact on the final score.

A horse and rider's final score is expressed as a percent value; ultimately, the sum of all of the scores that a horse and rider receive on each test is divided by the total number of points possible, and the resulting number is multiplied by 100 to arrive at a percent value. This percent value is then used to rank horses and riders and assess the outcome of the competition.