(“She was determined, however, to make it through the whole hour.”)

Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro are awarded 90.089 in the Freestyle to win the Individual Gold Medal with a record Olympic score! No reason in the world not to be happy for her. A beautiful ride with stirring music before a wildly enthusiastic home
crowd.

But without meaning to throw cold water on her parade, let’s be clear about one thing. While it is undeniably true that the caliber of Olympic horses has improved greatly over the past 30 or 40 years (and it is less undeniably true that the quality of the riding
and training has kept pace), the massive uptick in the winning scores derives in part from another source.

Going back to the 1976 OG at Montreal, the dressage cognoscenti marveled at “astronomical” scores in the stratospheric mid 70s. That same year gymnast Nadia Comăneci made Olympic history scoring the first perfect 10. Critics outside the dressage world wondered aloud how the very best dressage performance in the world couldn’t do better than only “three quarters of perfection.”
The answer at the time was “Well, that just proves how tough it is to manage all the variables that artistic riding presents.” In actual fact, the FEI responded to these scoring pressures, voicing their determination that dressage would not be left behind.

International Judges Forums emphasized “rewarding the positive aspects” and not automatically crushing a horse for a mistake. The reasoning went: imagine two horses performing a line of 9 2-tempis. The quality of the first horse’s effort is a 5 until he misses the last change and his score becomes a 4. The second horse’s line is much
more beautiful, straight, and expressive. The judge is thinking 9, but he, too, misses the last change. In the old days, he would also receive a 4. In the new way of looking at things, despite his mistake, he shouldn’t be penalized as severely as the first horse. The first received a deduction of one mark. If the second horse is penalized two marks— twice as much—he still deserves a 7.

This rationale doesn’t apply across the board in all instances. There are so called “Fundamental” faults which are of such overriding import, that if they crop up, they set off the FAIL siren no matter how redeeming the rest of the movement might seem. Regardless, granting this new leeway to penalize lesser faults more kindly as well as encouragement from the top not to be so stingy with the 9s and the 10s has pushed scores where they never used to go.

I recall a USEF Judges Forum in 2005 where the moderator, Linda Zang, told us in as many words, “When the rides are good, SCORE THEM HIGHER!” Now add in the Freestyle competition where half the score is earned on the Artistic side of the score sheet. In the just concluded London Games the gold medal winner, Valegro, received Artistic scores of 90, 95, 96, 92, 93, 93, and 95. The silver medal horse, Parzival, scored 90, 95, 91, 92, 93, 92, 93. Think those numbers might help a girl’s total a little? Judged on Technical merit only, Valegro’s score drops to 86.75—nothing to sneer at by any means, but not quite in as rarified a zone as a 90.

So I am not complaining, just making note of the changed attitude towards the numbers. Hopping from dressage to Major League Baseball for a moment, a phenomenon occurred in 1968 which became known as The Year of the Pitcher. That season because of a confluence of factors, only a single American League hitter managed a batting average over .300 and all sorts of pitching records were smashed. Strikeouts, consecutive scoreless innings pitched, lowest earned run average, lowest batting average allowed, most wins in a season. Baseball recognized that 1-0 games don’t sell seats. Over the winter they passed rule changes to shrink the strike zone and to lower the pitcher’s mound by five inches. The result the following spring and ever since—more hitting, more runs scored, and as a result, better attendance at the ballparks. When the rules have changed, however, it becomes meaningless to use statistics to try to compare players from one era to the next. You might draw some similar conclusions about the dressage numbers.