How Is Dressage Scored?

A dressage test is not scored as a performance. It is cut into numbered movements, and every judge on the panel gives each movement its own mark from 0 to 10 (FEI Dressage Rules, Art. 423.2). The 2026 FEI Grand Prix contains 33 numbered movements; the Grand Prix Special contains 36.

The scale is verbal before it is numerical. Each number carries a fixed FEI descriptor, so a 7 means "fairly good" in Aachen and in Wellington alike, and a judge who writes 6 is saying "satisfactory" rather than "a bit disappointing".

Half marks are legal across the whole range — 0.5 to 9.5 (Art. 423.4). There is no 10.5 and no half-step below zero, and the half mark may be used both on movements and on the collective mark, entirely at the judge's discretion.

Zero is a technical term, not an insult. Art. 423.5 defines "not executed" as meaning that "practically nothing of the required movement has been performed" — so a rider who attempts a movement badly earns a 1 or a 2, while a rider who simply misses it out is the one who scores 0.

Finer increments exist in exactly one place. In Freestyle tests half marks apply to the technical marks, but the artistic marks may be given to one decimal — steps of 0.1 (Art. 423.6). The same 0.1 precision applies in Young Horse tests.

Not every movement carries the same weight. Art. 423.10 allows the FEI to attach a coefficient to "certain difficult movements" as well as to the collective mark, and Art. 425.1 then multiplies each mark by its coefficient before the totals are added.

In current FEI tests the only multiplier used is 2. In the 2026 Grand Prix, 11 of the 33 movements are doubled, which is why the technical section is worth 440 points rather than 330: twenty-two single-weight movements plus eleven doubled ones make 44 mark-slots of ten points each.

Where the coefficients actually sit surprises most spectators. Piaffe is doubled in all three of its appearances, and so are both canter pirouettes, the one-tempi changes, the canter zig-zag, both trot half-passes and — the genuinely counter-intuitive pair — the extended walk and the collected walk.

Passage is not doubled. Neither is the extended trot. The six passage segments, the three passage-to-piaffe transitions, the extended canter and the two-tempi changes all carry coefficient 1 in the Grand Prix, despite being the movements crowds react to most loudly.

The practical consequence is a scoring map, not a highlight reel. A rider who is one mark better in the walk tour and the piaffes gains twice as much as a rider who is one mark better in the extensions — which is why the walk, the least spectacular part of a Grand Prix, so often decides it.

Dressage now ends with exactly one collective mark, and since 1 January 2026 it is called Harmony. Art. 423.9 sets it out plainly: after the athlete has finished, "a collective mark is awarded for Harmony and demonstration of the Training Scale". On the test sheet it carries a coefficient of 2, so it is worth up to 20 of the Grand Prix's 460 points.

The name change is not cosmetic. The mark it replaced, "General Impression", invited a summary judgment of the whole ride. The 2026 wording ties the mark to named qualities — harmony, cooperation, lightness, effectiveness and sensitivity of the aids, and adherence to the Training Scale — and the phrase "General Impression" no longer appears anywhere in the rulebook.

There used to be four collective marks, and three were deleted in 2018. The FEI General Assembly of November 2017 accepted the Dressage Judging Working Group's argument that separate collectives for paces, impulsion and submission gave judges room to adjust a result after the fact. Only the seat-and-aids mark survived, and it is that mark which has since become Harmony.

Attempts to bring a second collective back have all failed. Proposals from the European Equestrian Federation in 2021 and from the Austrian and German federations in 2023 were rejected, the 2021 version without even reaching a vote.

Every judged sport eventually has this argument: how much of the score should sit outside the individual elements? Figure skating answers it with a whole second half of the score, as the Grade of Execution system shows; dressage has spent a decade shrinking its answer instead.

A dressage result is a percentage because the tests are not all worth the same. Art. 425.5.5 sets the formula per judge: add the marks, having multiplied each by its coefficient, divide by the maximum total points for that test, and multiply by 100.

The maximum is printed on every test sheet. Art. 425.5.3 names the Grand Prix figure explicitly: 460 points. The Grand Prix Special sheet totals 470, and the Grand Prix Freestyle is split into 200 points of technical and 200 points of artistic marks.

Each judge is converted to a percentage first, and only then are the judges averaged. Art. 425.5.9 is specific: the final percentage "is obtained by adding the total average percentage per Judge divided by the number of Judges". Every judge divides by the same maximum, so that is not a different sum from pooling the points — but each judge's percentage is rounded before the averaging, and that is what can move the third decimal.

Everything is published to three decimal places (Art. 425.5.2 and Art. 426.1), and a small 2026 amendment tightened the rounding band in Art. 425.5.4 so that a residual of exactly 0.0010 now rounds down rather than sitting in an undefined gap. In a sport where world championship medals have been separated by hundredths, that fourth decimal is not a technicality.

Penalties are taken off the percentage, not off the points. Art. 424.4.3 applies percentage-point deductions on each judge's sheet after the conversion, so an error of course costs the same two percentage points regardless of which test is being ridden.

Every international dressage competition is judged by a Ground Jury of between three and seven members (Art. 441.1). The size is not a matter of taste — the rulebook fixes it by event.

Championships and the Olympic Games use seven judges plus one reserve at Grand Prix level (Art. 441.2). A CDI3*, CDI4* or CDI5* normally uses five, with seven permitted at the higher stars, and the World Cup Final runs on five plus a reserve.

The geometry matters more than the number. Art. 411.6.1 places three judges on the short side behind C — the judge at C on the prolongation of the centre line, with M and H set 2.50 m inside the long-side prolongations — and only two on the long sides, at B and E. When seven judges are used, the two extra officials sit at the opposite short side, behind A.

So five of the seven judges watch a championship Grand Prix down the length of the arena. That is why the same halt can draw a 6 and an 8 from the same panel: a judge sitting at B sees straightness in a movement coming towards C that a judge at C physically cannot, and vice versa.

This is exactly what the 2027 rules revision is arguing about. In the first draft of the 2027 proposals, the International Dressage Officials Club and the European Equestrian Federation asked for four of the seven judges to be moved to the long sides, at V, P, R and S, on the grounds that contact problems are far easier to see side-on. The FEI Dressage Technical Committee agreed in principle and scheduled a test event; nothing has been adopted.

Judges are not silent between marks. At championships each judge's box carries a button linked to the Judges Signalling System (Art. 411.7.1), used to tell the judge at C discreetly about blood, lameness, an error of course or an equipment problem.

Above the judges sits a second body with the power to change their marks. The Judging Supervisory Panel exists, in the words of Art. 442.1, "to ensure fair judging", and under Art. 442.5 it is mandatory at the Olympic Games, at World and Continental Championships at Grand Prix level, and at World Cup Finals.

It has three members — ideally two judges at the top level-four grading and one trainer or athlete, all independent, with no more than one from any single national federation (Art. 442.4). They work from a clear view of the arena, live monitoring of the judges' scores on individual screens, and a rewindable video feed.

Its powers are deliberately narrow. Art. 442.6 lets the JSP "correct definite technical mistakes and counting errors" — a miscounted flying-change series, a missed break of gait, the wrong number of piaffe steps — and nothing else. Corrections may go up or down, but the panel "may not set marks outside the range of the judges' given marks". If the seven judges awarded between 5 and 8, the JSP cannot write a 4.

There is one whole-score trigger, and the threshold is five per cent. Under Art. 442.7, if a judge's final score for a combination differs from the average of the other judges by 5% or more, the JSP may — by unanimous decision of all three members — change that score to match the next closest score. Not to the average: to the nearest surviving neighbour.

Every correction is disclosed. The judges must be told immediately after the competition which marks were changed, and a signed correction form is attached to the sheets and made available to the athletes and to the judge concerned. A comparable mechanism runs automatically at Youth Championships, where a 5% outlier on a five-judge panel is adjusted without any discretion at all — except in the Children category, which Art. 425.5.10 excludes.

Transparency of this kind is the standard response to the credibility problems judged sports have accumulated — the same pressure that produced the reforms catalogued in Olympic judging controversies.

The Freestyle — the Kür, ridden to music — is the only dressage test where artistry carries formal marks, and the split is exact. Art. 425.5.6 adds the technical and artistic percentages and divides by two, so technical and artistic are worth precisely 50% each.

The technical half is a compulsory list. Sixteen required movements are marked out of 10, four of them doubled — both canter pirouettes, a passage of at least 15 m on one track, and a piaffe of at least 10 steps ridden straight — for a maximum of 200 points. Note that the one-tempi changes, doubled in the Grand Prix, carry no coefficient here.

The artistic half is five marks, each multiplied by four, also totalling 200. These are the only marks in dressage given to one decimal place.

Degree of Difficulty is calculated, not felt. Under the FEI Freestyle System the rider builds an electronic floorplan before the draw and declares every difficulty in advance. The software scores that floorplan from a base value of 6.5, adding published bonuses from three catalogues — difficult movements, difficult transitions and combinations. A full 360° piaffe pirouette and fifteen or more one-tempi changes on a circle line are each worth +0.35, a difficult transition +0.05, and a combination of six or more elements +0.5. A bonus only pays if the movement is then ridden well, the judge may adjust the computed figure, and the mark is capped at 10. The FEI revised the system during 2026, tightening the execution thresholds that decide whether a declared difficulty pays out.

Time is the one hard constraint. The performance must finish between 5:30 and 6:00; outside that window, 0.5% comes off the artistic total.

A World Championship awards three sets of dressage medals from three different tests, and Art. 402.2.1 names them: the Grand Prix is the Team Championship, the Grand Prix Special is an Individual Competition, and the Grand Prix Freestyle is a second Individual Competition. At Aachen 2026 the dressage runs from 11 to 15 August, with the Grand Prix over 11 and 12 August.

Team medals come from the Grand Prix, not from a final. A nation enters three riders or four (Art. 412.3.2), and where four are fielded (Art. 412.3.3), "the three best scores only count for the team result". A three-rider team therefore has no drop score and no margin for an elimination.

Nothing carries over. Art. 425.4.3 states that percentages are never added between the team and individual competitions: "all Competitions start from zero". The Special is open to the 30 best from the Grand Prix, the Freestyle to the 18 best from the Special including ties, with a maximum of three riders per country.

The Olympic format is genuinely different, and confusing the two is the commonest mistake in dressage coverage. At the Games the Grand Prix is only a qualifier: the Grand Prix Special decides the team medals and the Freestyle decides the single set of individual medals. So the Olympics award one individual title where a World Championship awards two, and the test that hands out team medals is not the same test.

Ties are broken by the median, not by a countback. For the first three places in a non-Freestyle test, the higher median judge score wins (Art. 425.2.1.2). In the Freestyle the cascade runs artistic total, then the harmony mark, then choreography. For teams, the tie goes to whichever side's weakest counting rider scored better (Art. 425.4.2).

Dressage punishes procedural mistakes with percentage points and welfare failures with elimination, and the two ladders are separate.

A wrong turn costs two percentage points, and the second one ends the test. Art. 424.4.1.1 is blunt: first error, two percentage points off each judge's total; second error, elimination. The softer 0.5% / 1% / elimination ladder that many riders quote applies only to Young Horse, Children, Pony and Junior tests (Art. 424.4.1.2).

Only the judge at C decides whether an error happened, and the other judges adapt their scores accordingly (Art. 424.1.2). The bell may be withheld where ringing it would needlessly break up the ride. If the Ground Jury never noticed the error, Art. 424.3.1 gives the athlete the benefit of the doubt.

A separate 0.5 percentage point applies to technical faults — entering with a whip or boots, a dress irregularity such as missing gloves, entering before the bell, taking longer than 45 seconds to enter after it, or repeatedly using the voice (Art. 424.4.2.2).

The blood rule became markedly stricter on 1 January 2026. Art. 424.5.6 now applies from the moment the combination enters the space around the arena. If the judge at C suspects fresh blood anywhere on the horse, they must stop the ride and check; if it is confirmed, the combination is eliminated and "the elimination is final". A steward who finds fresh blood in or in the area of the mouth, or in the spur area, at the post-test check triggers the same outcome — the words "in the area of the mouth" are new for 2026.

Other eliminations cover marked lameness, a fall, all four feet leaving the arena, unauthorised assistance and resistance lasting more than 20 seconds — with a 2026 addition allowing elimination for shorter episodes where safety or welfare is at risk. There is no elimination for exceeding the test time: the 6:30 printed on the Grand Prix sheet is marked "for information only".

Para dressage uses the same machinery — marks from 0 to 10, half marks from 0.5 to 9.5, a doubled collective mark, results to three decimal places — and changes four things that matter.

Riders compete within five grades, numbered I to V, with Grade I the most impaired. The grade determines what the test may ask for rather than how strictly it is judged: Grade I tests are ridden in walk only, Grades II and III in walk and trot, Grade IV adds canter and lateral work in trot, and Grade V adds lateral work in canter. Every grade rides the same three levels — Novice, Intermediate and Grand Prix — so a Grade I Para Grand Prix is a genuine Grand Prix test with a walk-only vocabulary.

The arena size changes with the grade. Art. 8407.2.1 puts Grades I to III in a 20 × 40 m arena and Grades IV and V in the full 20 × 60 m.

The voice is a legal aid for Grades I, II and III, used in moderation, and forbidden for Grades IV and V (Art. 8416.5.3) — a straightforward reversal of the able-bodied rule.

Para dressage has not adopted the Harmony rename. Its single collective mark is still called General Impression (Art. 8420.7), which is one of the clearest signs that the 2026 update was a targeted amendment rather than a rewrite.

Errors are also treated more leniently: 0.5 percentage points for the first, 1 point for the second, elimination on the third. Riders may use compensating aids, tiered from standard equipment anyone may use, through profile-specific aids recorded on the FEI Classification Master List, to non-standard aids requiring approval from the FEI Compensating Aids Panel. The grade itself is allocated by two accredited classifiers — the same functional logic explained in our guide to Paralympic classification.

The dressage at the FEI World Championship in Aachen ran from 11 to 15 August 2026 and settled every medal with the arithmetic set out above. Charlotte Fry and Glamourdale won both individual titles — the Grand Prix Special on 82.295% and the Grand Prix Freestyle on 91.907% — and Germany took team gold on 235.063. Every figure below reconciles against the articles quoted in this guide.

Team gold was three percentages added together. Art. 412.3.3 counts the best three scores of four, and the German total is exactly that: Isabell Werth 79.876 + Katharina Hemmer 79.224 + Frederic Wandres 75.963 = 235.063, with Raphael Netz's 73.338 discarded. Great Britain's silver reads Fry 80.311 + Carl Hester 77.314 + Becky Moody 73.820 = 231.445, and Denmark's bronze Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour 82.376 + Daniel Bachmann Andersen 74.876 + Carina Cassøe Krüth 72.174 = 229.426. There is no final, no multiplier and no bonus: the Grand Prix column is the team result.

Nothing carried over, and the leaderboard proved it. Laudrup-Dufour rode the best Grand Prix of all 91 combinations on 82.376% and led nothing on Friday, because Art. 425.4.3 returns every athlete to zero for each competition. Fry, third in the Grand Prix, won the Special by 1.368 percentage points — and the Special's bronze medallist never rode the Freestyle at all, after Hemmer withdrew Denoix PCH, a horse coming back from injury.

The final score really is the average of seven percentages. Fry's seven cards in the Special read 81.809 at K, 84.468 at E, 82.872 at H, 80.213 at C, 82.979 at M, 81.489 at B and 82.234 at F. They sum to 576.064, and 576.064 ÷ 7 = 82.295 — the published score, exactly as Art. 425.5.9 requires. Six of the seven judges ranked her first.

Those same cards confirm a maximum the rulebook never prints. Art. 425.5.3 names 460 points for the Grand Prix and leaves the Special to its own test sheet. Convert each Aachen Special percentage back at 470 points and every one lands on an exact half-point total — Fry's judge at E on 397.0, her judge at C on 377.0. That only works if the marks were half-marks (Art. 423.4) over a denominator of 470.

A world silver medal was worth two points. Laudrup-Dufour finished 0.061 percentage points ahead of Hemmer. Converted back, the silver card totals 2662.5 points across seven judges and the bronze card 2660.5 — a gap of 2.0 points out of a possible 3,290, or four half-marks spread over an entire test and an entire panel. That is why Art. 425.5.2 insists on three decimals.

The panel disagreed sharply and the Judging Supervisory Panel still had nothing to do. In the Grand Prix, Werth's card ran from 76.413 (the Finnish judge) to 82.717 (the German judge) — 6.304 points apart on a single ride. No score was changed, because Art. 442.7 does not measure the spread between the highest and the lowest judge. It measures how far one judge sits from the average of the other six: the German judge was 3.314 above that average, the Finnish judge 4.040 below, and both are inside the five per cent threshold. At least one report of these championships put the threshold at six per cent — a figure that survives in an FEI technical-requirements note from 2015. The rule in force, Art. 442.7, says five.

An error of course is legible in the results sheet if you know the arithmetic. Christian Simonson (USA) rode two-tempi changes where the Special calls for the first canter half-pass, later explaining that his mind was still in the Grand Prix test, and finished 29th of 30 on 68.456%. His seven published percentages, 67.149 to 69.596, are the only ones in the class that do not convert to a clean half-point total. Add exactly 2.000 percentage points to each and they all do: 325.0, 325.5, 333.5, 329.0, 336.5, 334.0 and 334.5 points out of 470. That is the first-error tariff of Art. 424.4.1.1, taken off every judge's sheet.

The highest single mark of the week was not a 10. Fry's extended canter and the transition back to collected canter drew a 10.0 from six of the seven judges and a 9.0 from the seventh, which averages 9.86 and was published as 9.9. One dissenting card in seven moved the movement mark by roughly a tenth.

The Freestyle was a separate contest with separate arithmetic. Fry rode a personal best 91.907% in front of 40,000 spectators, ahead of Laudrup-Dufour on 91.236% and Werth on 88.650% — half technical percentage, half artistic percentage, as Art. 425.5.6 prescribes. The six leading nations in the Grand Prix — Germany, Great Britain, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden — took team places at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, where the Grand Prix Special, not the Grand Prix, will decide the team medals.