Is there an advantage to going early or late or on day 1 versus day 2?
Of course, riders don’t have a choice of when they ride in the dressage phase of a three-day event such as Badminton as the order is drawn, but what sort of draw would make a rider pleased? From the analysis of previous three-day event dressage results at a number of events over a number of years the best time to be drawn is probably in the latter part of the second day. If we look at last week’s results from the 2022 Land Rover Kentucky Three-Day Event we can see that there was not any clear advantage to going later on the first day of dressage (Thursday), although there were fewer competitors riding on the Thursday. We can see that Friday starts are similar, but the overall trend is for riders going later to achieve higher scores / fewer penalties. Normally with two full days of dressage, we expect to see a similar trend for both days, with a later draw on either day increasing the chance of a better mark! A similar phenomenon also occurs in pure dressage. But the big question is what will happen at Badminton in the next two days?
We will be following and analysing!
