The Freestyle (Kür)

The freestyle (Kür in German) is a dressage test the rider choreographs to music. Within a list of compulsory movements for the level, the rider designs the floor plan, chooses the music, and delivers a performance judged on artistic quality as well as technical execution. Freestyles exist from the lowest national levels to Grand Prix, where the Freestyle decides the individual medals at the Olympic Games and World Championships.

How the freestyle became the sport’s showpiece

The competitive freestyle is younger than it looks. Its catalyst is conventionally dated to the 1984 Olympic Games, where Reiner Klimke and Ahlerich celebrated with one-tempi changes to John Williams’ Olympic fanfare; the Dutch organiser Joep Bartels took from it the idea of a choreographed test to music, and the first FEI Dressage World Cup Final, built around the freestyle, followed in 1985. The format’s rise reshaped the sport’s architecture. The World Cup grew into a worldwide series of leagues whose indoor season runs from autumn to spring, settled at a final each year; since 2002 only the Freestyle counts toward the World Cup rankings, and the Grand Prix Freestyle now decides the individual titles at the Olympic Games and World Championships. The Olympic Grand Prix Freestyle requires sixteen compulsory movements arranged to the rider’s own music.

What makes a freestyle different

A standard test is fixed: every rider performs the same movements in the same order. A freestyle offers freedom within constraints.

What must be included: the compulsory movements for the level. Every freestyle must show them, recognisably.

What can be arranged: their order, placement and patterns, entirely the rider’s choice.

What raises the ceiling: optional additions and more difficult arrangements (movements on curved lines, harder entries, combinations) that increase the degree of difficulty.

What is forbidden: movements above the level. Showing them costs the technical mark and caps the artistic marks.

Compulsory movements by level

Each level’s freestyle sheet lists its required elements. Broadly: the lowest levels require the basic paces, transitions and figures; the middle levels add lateral work, medium paces and (from the US Fourth Level / UK Advanced Medium equivalent) flying changes; small tour freestyles require the Prix St Georges and Intermediate I vocabulary including pirouettes and tempi changes; and the Grand Prix Freestyle requires the full Grand Prix vocabulary: piaffe, passage, one-tempi changes and canter pirouettes.

Missing a required movement, or performing it so unclearly the judge cannot identify it, scores zero for that movement and caps the artistic marks for choreography and degree of difficulty (at 5 under FEI rules for an omitted compulsory movement). For FEI freestyles, the FEI’s online Freestyle Creator lets riders build and validate their floor plan against the requirements before competing.

Technical and artistic scoring

Freestyles are scored in two halves.

Technical marks

Each compulsory movement is marked 0–10 exactly as in a standard test, and the same marking scale applies. Instead of a standard test’s collective marks, the technical side includes an overall mark for rhythm, energy and elasticity: the quality of the paces across the whole performance.

Artistic marks

Five artistic marks, each 0–10 (awarded in decimals):

• Harmony between horse and rider — lightness, willingness, and how effortless the performance looks.
• Choreography — imaginative, balanced use of the whole arena: varied lines, both reins, no dead patterns, the horse’s strengths displayed.
• Degree of difficulty — calculated risk beyond the minimum: tempi changes on curved lines, harder entries and combinations. Rewarded when it succeeds; capped when compulsory elements are missing or botched. At FEI level the assessment of difficulty is increasingly systematised, with published guidance setting out which combinations count as genuinely difficult.
• Music — whether the music suits the horse, matches the tempo of each pace, and is competently edited.
• Interpretation — whether the riding is to the music: transitions on phrases, highlights accented, gait changes reflected in the score.

Technical and artistic sides weigh roughly equally in the final percentage, with the exact coefficients printed on each level’s score sheet. In practice the two halves are not independent: poor technical execution depresses harmony, choreography and interpretation with it. The consistent message of FEI directives and national guidance alike: a well-performed easy test beats a poorly performed difficult one.

Building a freestyle

Music selection. The horse’s own stride tempo (measured in beats per minute for each pace) determines what music can work. Distinct music for walk, trot and canter helps judges and the audience read the performance. Genre matters less than fit and editing: jarring cuts and mismatched tempo cost marks regardless of style.

Choreography. Successful floor plans use the entire arena, string movements together logically, avoid repetition, and put the extensions on long straight lines where judges can assess them. Compulsory movements ridden where they cannot be judged (a medium trot hidden on a curve) risk not being credited at all.

Time limits. Freestyle sheets specify a time window for the level — the Grand Prix Freestyle runs to about six minutes. Overrunning is penalised on the artistic side; riding far under the time wastes the chance to show more and usually costs marks simply because less is shown.

Common freestyle faults

• Omitted compulsory movement: zero for the movement, artistic caps applied.
• Unrecognisable movement: not credited, with the same knock-on effects.
• Movements above the level: no credit, artistic caps applied.
• Music out of sync with the gaits: deductions to music and interpretation.
• Tension: depresses harmony and the rhythm-energy-elasticity mark; a freestyle cannot be ridden at a horse.

Two philosophies, one podium

Some riders build “flowing” freestyles (continuous, harmonious, musically seamless) and bank the harmony and music marks. Others build “technical” freestyles dense with difficulty and bank choreography and degree of difficulty. Both win when executed cleanly; the great freestyles do both at once. What decides it is execution: risk that succeeds is difficulty, and risk that fails is a movement mark of 4 with an artistic echo.

Qualifying to ride a freestyle

Most federations require a qualifying score in the standard test at the level (typically 60–65%) before a combination may enter the freestyle — the reasoning being that choreography and music are complexity added on top of competence, not a substitute for it. At CDIs the FEI applies the same principle structurally: the small tour and Grand Prix freestyles are open to the leading combinations from the set tests, subject to a minimum qualification score. The thresholds sit alongside the sport’s other gatekeeping percentages, covered in qualification requirements.

Where freestyles are ridden

Nationally, freestyles run from the lowest levels at ordinary affiliated shows, under frameworks that vary by federation: the USDF publishes the freestyle framework for Training through Fourth Level, defining compulsory elements and judging methodology per level, while the Dutch Kür op muziek is available from class L upward with its own protocol of technical and artistic marks — and, characteristically for the Dutch system, freestyle results never count toward promotion points. Internationally, the FEI offers freestyles at small tour and Grand Prix level at CDIs, and the Grand Prix Freestyle is where the biggest occasions in the sport are decided: the individual Olympic and World titles, and the FEI World Cup Final, which is settled in the Freestyle by design. At CDI-W qualifiers the condensed Short Grand Prix serves as the preceding set test.

The Freestyle at the World Cup Final

The World Cup Final shows the freestyle’s institutional weight most clearly. The final consists of two competitions, a Grand Prix followed by the Grand Prix Freestyle, and the winner of the Freestyle is the World Cup champion of the season: the set test seeds, the freestyle decides. Riders reach the final through the season’s league qualifiers, in which a minimum score of 68% in the Freestyle is required for a result to count toward qualification. No other property of the sport hands a choreographed test that much authority, which is why top combinations maintain and evolve signature freestyles across seasons.

Sources

• Fédération Équestre Internationale — FEI Dressage Rules, 26th edition, 2026. https://inside.fei.org/fei/disc/dressage/rules
• Fédération Équestre Internationale — Dressage Tests (Short Grand Prix at CDI-Ws), 2026. https://inside.fei.org/fei/your-role/organisers/dressage/tests
• Team GB / British Olympic Association — Explained: Olympic equestrian (Freestyle format, 16 compulsory movements), 2024. https://www.teamgb.com/article/explained-olympic-equestrian/WezIfU9MMcaY5kuWmjgPe
• Wikipedia — Dressage World Cup (history of the freestyle and the World Cup Final), 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dressage_World_Cup
• Koninklijke Nederlandse Hippische Sportfederatie (KNHS) — Disciplinereglement Dressuur, versie 2026 (Kür op muziek), 2026. https://www.knhs.nl/media/jmid00ij/disciplinereglement-dressuur-2026.pdf
• United States Dressage Federation — Dressage Tests (freestyle framework Training–Fourth Level), 2023. https://www.usdf.org/downloads/forms/index.asp?TypePass=Tests