The rules and scoring of horse driving trials competitions are quite complex and the scorer's life is not an easy one. In recent years more and more use is being made of computers to aid in the calculation of scores, giving an increase of both speed and accuracy of the final results.

Scoring software has been developed specifically for FEI driving trials by Philippe Lienart from Belgium and is now used at virtually all major competitions. Results from International CAI events, as well as most UK Nationals are processed using this system, which allows a direct upload to the website, thus reducing time and eliminating errors.

This article explains how the results are presented.

The Driving Trials competition (Concours Attelage) is divided into three phases - A, B and C. These are more commonly known as Dressage, Marathon and Cones. The results are normally presented as three separate pages - one for dressage, one for the marathon and one for the final scores (including the cones competition). This gives the maximum amount of information about each competitor's progress throughout the competition.

The Dressage results

The dressage results table gives the name of the competitor and their country (if it's an international competition).

The names of the three judges are given, together with their positions at the dressage arena (e.g. judge Harper was at letter C). For each judge, the table gives the total mark given by that judge. This is the sum of their marks for all the individual movements. The higher this number, the better the score. The CLT column indicates the placing (or ranking) of the competitor by that judge.

The PEN column gives any penalties awarded during the test (e.g. errors of course etc.).

Under TOTAL, the + column gives the total average mark. This is calculated by adding together all the judges' marks and dividing by the number of judges (in this case 3, but may be up to 5 in international competitions). The - column gives the total penalty score, which is the total mark subtracted from 160, with any extra penalties added on. This is the final dressage mark which is carried forward to the overall score at the end of the competition.

PLEASE NOTE - The dressage test driven by multiples (FEI Test No.6 Advanced) has 20 movements, i.e. a possible maximum of 200 points. To bring these scores into line with other classes, which are marked out of 160, a reduction factor of 80% is applied to the + column.

The final CLT column gives the driver's placing after dressage.

The Marathon results

The CLT column shows the placing of the competitor after the marathon.

The A-E column gives any penalties, time or referee's, incurred on sections A to E of the marathon course.

The 8 numbered columns give the times for the individual obstacles, with the 1-8 column giving the total time taken in all 8 obstacles.

The MARAT PNTS is the total of all marathon penalties, calculated at 0.2 penalties for each second of the total obstacle time, plus any other penalties added (such as knock downs or course penalties).

Overall results

The final results table carries the scores from the three phases of the competition - A (dressage), B (marathon) and C (cone driving). Each CLT column gives the driver's placing in that phase.

The FINAL column contains the total penalty score (PNTS) and the final placing (CLT).

Manually scored competitions

A number of competitions, including a few nationals and novice qualifiers do their scoring manually. The results are normally hand-written onto a master score sheet, which is then transcribed onto a web page. This process is not only time consuming, but also open to possible errors.

The presentation of this type or results is shown below. The results from all three phases of the competition are combined on a single page.

The dressage column contains a presentation mark, which is only applicable to novice classes. The obstacle scores are given as penalties, rather than time in seconds. The cones score shows penalties for faults (balls down) and time.