The 1956 Olympics created some serious changes for the dressage competition at the 1960 Games. The previous Games had resulted in a serious judging scandal after the German and Swedish judges favored their own countrymen. These two judges were subsequently suspended by the FEI. Following this controversy, the IOC threatened to remove dressage from the Olympics, but the FEI managed to come to a compromise, removing the team competition from the 1960 Games and only allowing individual competitors (up to 2 per country). Additionally, 3 of the judges had to be from non-participating countries, and ride-offs were filmed and reviewed for a day before the final results were announced publicly.
The other major change was in the scoring scale, which moved from a scale of 0–6 to 0–10.
17 riders competed, from 10 nations. Despite the small number of riders, the competition still took a long time as the judges, conscious of not playing favoritism, conferred for up to 20 minutes following each ride. 5 riders total qualified for the ride-off (2 from the Soviet Union, and 1 each from Switzerland, Germany, and Sweden). The ride-off was filmed and reviewed, the judging panel decided not to change the original placings, and the results were announced to the public 3 days following the ride.
Competition format
Three judges gave scores. Each judge gave a score between 0 and 10 for each test. The competition was held over two rounds; the top 5 horse and rider pairs in the first round advanced to the second round. The total score for both rounds determined final ranking.
