Individual, Open

Because of the judging controversies in 1956 dressage, several rules were changed for 1960, as follows: 1) only two riders per country; 2) no team competition; 3) Grand Prix performances to be discussed among the judges before a final verdict; 4) the ride-off performances to be filmed and the film reviewed for a length of time; 5) judges to be selected only from countries with no medal contenders; and 6) scores would be given on the scale of 0 – 10 instead of 0 – 6. Because of the length of time to review the films and the judges’ discussions, the final results were not announced until three days after the competition ended.

The individual dressage was also different as the original 17 competitors rode a preliminary round, with the top five riders advancing to a final round. The top five places were determined by the combined score of the preliminary and final rounds. The two-time defending champion, Sweden’s Henri Saint Cyr was back and made it to the final round, but would eventually place only fourth. Soviet Sergey Filatov went off third in the final, and posted the highest final round score. He had also led the qualifying and thus won the gold medal quite easily. Josef Neckermann was second after qualifying, but placed fourth in the final and dropped back to the bronze medal position, trailing Gustav Fischer, who had the second best final round. American Patricia Galvin had won the recent Grand Prix de Aachen and came in as one of the favorites, but placed sixth in qualifying and just missed the final.