Eventing: three tests, one penalty total.

Which rulebook this page uses

The FEI's own site refused our requests, so the FEI Eventing Rules were read through Equestrian Australia's 2026 rulebook, which states that it reproduces the FEI "Eventing Rules, 27th Edition effective 1st January 2026" and shades Equestrian Australia's national additions separately. Article numbers below are as they appear there. The Olympic Federation of Ireland calls eventing the most complex of the three Olympic disciplines.

The three tests and the two formats

Eventing has three tests on the same horse: dressage, cross country and jumping. The rules recognise two formats:

Long Format (CCI-L), Art 502.1.2

Dressage comes first, cross country the next day and jumping the day after. The cross-country course is long enough that the rule says the horse must be "supremely fit", and stamina is needed. Cross country always comes before jumping.

Short Format (CCI-S), Art 502.1.3

Held over one or more days, with dressage first, then jumping and cross country. The cross-country difficulty matches the long format at the same star level, but the course is shorter and more intense. Cross country preferably comes after jumping.

CCI1*-Intro, Art 502.1.4

A unified introductory level that may run as either format.

A search summary of a US Eventing explainer says that in 2019 the FEI moved each level up one star, added the introductory one-star level and split CCIs into long and short formats, so that the old CCI4* became CCI5*-L and the old CIC2* became CCI3*-S, and that there is no CCI5*-S. We could not open the article, so that account is unconfirmed.

Scoring: penalty points, lowest total wins

• Dressage marks are turned into penalty points by subtracting the percentage from 100 and rounding to one decimal place (Art 544.2.4).
• Every eventing dressage test carries one overall mark for the harmony of athlete and horse, with a double coefficient (Art 544.2.5).
• The winner has the lowest total of penalty points across the three tests, and elimination in any one test is elimination from the whole competition (Arts 528.1.4 and 528.1.5).
• Individual ties are broken in this order: the better cross-country score, then the higher dressage marks, then the cross-country time closest to the optimum, then the jumping score, then the faster jumping time, and finally the dressage overall impression mark (Art 528.1.6).
• Teams have three or four athletes. The team score adds the three best individual totals, and a team member who does not finish is given 200 penalty points for team purposes (Art 528.2.1).

Cross-country penalties (Art 548)

Finishing faster than the optimum time is not rewarded (Arts 545.2.1 and 548.2). Equestrian Australia adds a national rule (its 548.2.1): at CCN3* and below, finishing more than 20 seconds under the optimum time also costs 0.4 penalties per commenced second.

Where a fall happens in the same movement as a refusal, a frangible activation or a missed flag, the extra fault is not added, but frangible penalties are otherwise never removed, and only official video may be used as evidence (notes to Art 548.1). Frangible devices are covered on the eventing safety and frangible devices page.

The flag penalty changed for 2026

The penalty for missing a flag dropped for 2026. Australian 3DE (30 May 2026) reports it was cut from 15 to 9 penalties. A search summary of Equestrian Australia's summary of the 1 January 2025 rule changes still listed 15, and the 2026 rule text (Art 549.2b) confirms 9.

Definitions (Art 549)

• A horse misses a flag when a point of its shoulder fails to pass between the flagged extremities of the obstacle while its head and neck pass inside them.
• It runs out when its head, neck and a point of either shoulder fail to pass between them.
• An athlete has fallen when separated from the horse in a way that requires remounting.
• A horse has fallen when its shoulder and quarters touch the ground, or the obstacle and the ground together, or when it is trapped in a fence.

Elimination on cross country (Art 548.3)

Elimination is compulsory for, among other things, improper saddlery, an uncorrected error of course, omitting an obstacle, jumping in the wrong order or direction, and an athlete in difficulty. It is at the Ground Jury's discretion for, among others, dangerous riding, abuse of the horse, and jumping without headgear or with an unfastened harness.

Jumping test penalties (Art 553)

The time penalty is a real difference from pure jumping: 0.4 per second here (Art 553.2), against one penalty per second in Table A jumping competitions under the FEI Jumping Rules (Art 217.1.1), both as reproduced by Equestrian Australia in 2026. The show jumping page has the jumping tables. In short-format events with jumping before cross country, an athlete with 20 or more obstacle penalties in the jumping test may not start cross country and is eliminated (Art 553.1).

Fence heights

Annex A of the 2026 rules sets a maximum height for fixed cross-country fences that rises with the star level: 1.05 m at one star, 1.10 m at two star, 1.15 m at three star, and 1.20 m at four star, five star and the World Championships or Olympic Games. Our copy of that table came from extracted text with a partly scrambled layout, so treat the figures as unconfirmed. British Eventing's levels table lists 1.30 m for CCI5*-L and Olympic or championship level; that may be a show jumping height rather than a cross-country one, but we could not confirm which.

Horse ages (Art 503)

Under Art 503.4, horses may compete at one star from the start of the year they turn five, at two and three star from the year they turn six, at four star from the year they turn seven, and at five star or in four-star championships from the year they turn nine. Art 503.3 allows young horse competitions at CCI2* and CCI3* for six- and seven-year-olds and at CCI1*-Intro for five-year-olds. The rider age rules are on the rider ages page.

The 2026 FEI General Regulations, as US Equestrian summarises them, also add an eventing rule: three Recorded Warnings to the same Person Responsible within 24 months bring an automatic two-month suspension.

Standards for body protectors and air vests are covered in the equipment section, on the body protectors and air vests pages; whether a particular item meets a competition's rule is for that body's current rules and its officials.