Why the Season's Highest Score Isn't Leading

The rider with the highest score of the season is not leading the US Equestrian Open of Dressage. And the current leader's best result of the year is not one of the four that make up her total. Both sound backwards until you understand how the points system works.

The points come from a single class, the Grand Prix Freestyle. Where a rider finishes in it— their placing— is what determines the leaderboard score, and the size of the field sets how much that placing is worth. There are three tiers. In a Freestyle with more than ten starters, a win is worth 25 points, down to 8 for a placing of eighth through fifteenth. With six to ten starters, a win is worth 20. With fewer than six, it is worth 15. The full breakdown is in the table.

Two more rules complete the picture. Only a rider's best four Freestyle results count toward the standings. Once four are on the board, competing again only adds to the total if the new placing beats one already counting, in which case it replaces the smallest result. And a rider needs at least two qualifiers to be eligible for the Final.

Ashley Holzer currently leads on 51 points, and her season shows why placing matters more than the score itself. On any given day, the percentage a rider earns decides where they place. But the leaderboard is not built from percentages. It is built purely from placing and the points attached to it. So a rider's best day on paper can turn into one of their smallest point hauls.

That is what happened to Holzer at the CDI5* in Wellington in January. Five-star shows always draw a high caliber of riders, and she was up against strong competition. She posted 75.290%, her best Freestyle score of the season, and came in fifth. In a six-horse field that placing was worth only 8 points. Because just four results count, that ride, her best of the year by percentage, did not even make her counting four total. Her 74.880% at Ocala, a lower score, earned 15 points because she came in second.

Isabell Werth is the counterexample. She posted the highest score of the season, an 82.660% Freestyle, and won the class for 25 points. But that is her only start. She currently sits on 25 points because that single result is all she has. The percentage won her the class on the day; beyond that it has no pull on the standings. And the two-start minimum means that one ride, however good, does not yet make her eligible for the Final.

The top 18 riders advance to the Final at Desert International Horse Park in November. As things stand, the cutoff line is a tie: Susan Dutta and Kristina Harrison-Antell are on 29 points. A tie at that cutoff widens the field, so 19 riders would currently make the trip to Thermal.

Two qualifiers are left, Dressage at Devon in late September and TerraNova in October. Either can lift riders up the board, push others below the line, and turn that tie into a clean cutoff or an even wider one.