Eventing dressage scores

[Paint it Lucky]

Just wondering, I had always assumed that when you get your mark for dressage in eventing (say 33) it is the opposite of a percentage, eg. the percentage you didn't get so if you were doing pure dressage it would be 67% in this example. Is this right? In the olympic eventing the commentators said (I think!) that it was actually multiplied by 1.5 so say if someone got 80% this would be 20 which if multiplied by 1.5 = 30 penalties. Is this right? I am confused! Is it only at higher levels that it changes to 1.5?

 

[Sarah_Jane]

At normal national horse trials it is the opposite of percentages as you quoted. At international (starred) events they multiply the penalty by 1.5 to make the dressage more influential.

 

[oldvic]

In BE you are right that they take the percentage away from 100 to get the score. In FEI they multiply by 1.5 which is why the scores are higher.

 

[Paint it Lucky]

Thankyou! I was wondering if I had been doing better in dressage than I thought I had but alas no! Direct opposites are easier to work out though