I have been running a crusade for this almost since the major change in format at Athens. It appears from most of the submissions that most of the NFs are not opposed, as long as the current ratio of phase importance is maintained.

Neither of the Eventing Committee proposals do that in full. Option A is much closer, but any score over 100 would end up being a negative score, which is not precisely encouraging, especially if, for some riders, merely finishing is a personal win.

One of the NF submissions proposes simply starting with the dressage negative score from 100, and using that as penalty points. Since this is what is already done presently--with the added penalties from the coefficient-- and is the standard mode in many National Eventing competitions, simply dropping the coefficient would reduce the importance of the dressage phase a bit and would keep the structure and penalties that we are all familiar with.

I have been keeping spreadsheets on all of the 4*s for five years or more which compare the final results with and without the dressage coefficient. While the dressage coefficient rarely determines the winners, it does dramatically affect the final placings in the top ten. It also affects placings in groups farther down in the results, until the very bottom placings are reached--usually those with scores over 100--where it has no effect at all. I would be happy to share my spreadsheets with anyone who wishes to see them.

The Committee has proposed an option that would weight all of phases equally. This is a huge change in how eventing was developed and how it is still conceived. Last year, the concensus among the eventing NFs seemed to be that XC should have more importance even today than dressage or stadium jumping. Proposal B from the Committee is completely at odds with that principle.