How Is Grand Prix Dressage Scored? A Beginner's Guide

You've seen the number: a rider halts at the end of a test, salutes, and something like 74 percent goes up on the board. But why that number? How does everything you just watched get distilled into a single percentage, and why does one test score so much higher than the next?

In part one, we covered the movements you see in the arena. This one covers how the judges turn those into a score.

The Mark Out of Ten

Every movement on the test sheet is scored from 0 to 10, and half-points are allowed. Ten is excellent, eight is good, six is satisfactory, on down to zero for a movement not performed at all. Several judges sit at different points around the arena and score the same movement from their own angle, which is why a horse can pull a 7 from one judge and an 8 from another on the same piaffe. Those marks get averaged into one number at the end of the test.

A 6 may look like a bad grade, but it isn't. On a report card it would be a D, but in dressage it is a satisfactory mark, and a common one. Most marks land between 6 and 8, and to win you want to at least be in the 7s. Anything 8 and up signals real quality, and a 9 is a rare sight.

Why Some Movements Count Double

Not every movement counts the same. The most important ones carry a coefficient, which doubles their points on the score sheet. These are the movements that define the level, and at Grand Prix they tend to be the hardest ones too: the piaffe, the pirouettes and the one-tempi changes are all doubled. It is why a horse that struggles in the piaffe pays extra for it, and why a bobble in the one-tempis stings more than it looks.

The Collective Marks

Alongside the movement scores, tests have long ended with collective marks: the judge's big-picture verdict on the whole ride rather than any single movement, covering the horse's gaits, its impulsion, its submission, and the rider. These are also scored out of 10. You will still see the full set of these at a national US show. At the international Grand Prix level, though, the FEI has pared them down. It cut the marks for gaits, impulsion and submission in 2018 and kept a single overall mark, now called Harmony, for the partnership and the training behind it. It still carries a coefficient, so it counts for more than any one movement.

Turning Marks Into a Percentage

Add up every mark, apply the coefficients, and you have a point total. Divide that by the most the horse could have scored if every mark were a 10, multiply by 100, and you have that judge's percentage. Average the judges and you have the number on the board. 

Those numbers are also thresholds. A horse needs at least 60 percent in the Grand Prix just to advance to the Freestyle, and for the US Equestrian Open, 67 percent in a qualifying Freestyle to be eligible for the Final in the first place.

What Makes the Freestyle Different

The Grand Prix Freestyle uses the same marks out of ten, but splits the result in two: technical and artistic. If that sounds familiar, it is the same idea as figure skating, one score for how well you execute the elements, another for the performance. The technical half works just like the standard dressage test. The horse still has to show a required list of movements, the same piaffe, passage, pirouettes, tempi changes and half passes from part one, each judged on quality. The artistic half is where the Freestyle differentiates itself. Here, judges score the choreography, the rhythm, the music, the harmony of the partnership, and the degree of difficulty. That last one is what it sounds like, how hard a program the rider builds, and like diving, a harder routine can score higher, but only if the horse delivers. Those marks each carry a coefficient of four, which is the reason Freestyle scores tend to run higher than the same horse's Grand Prix scores. But the artistry is still tethered to how well the horse actually goes. A great soundtrack cannot rescue a shaky ride. Technical excellence still drives the score.

Put the two parts of this series together and you can follow a Grand Prix from the first halt to the final score. Next time a rider finishes, salutes, and the percentage flashes up on USEF Network, you will know exactly where it came from.