Drama and dressage may often go hand-in-hand, but this year’s Rolex FEI World Cup Dressage Final was unpredictable from the get-go. First, there was the judge who didn’t arrive. Dr. Valentino Truppa’s plane had to make an emergency landing in Ireland after the pilot had a heart attack.

Then poor Adelinde Cornelissen, the Netherlands’ heir apparent to van Grunsven, had to withdraw when Parzival injured himself in the warm-up.

The United States faced a rough start on Thursday in the Grand Prix when Jan Ebeling couldn’t get Rafalca anywhere near the judges’ end of the arena throughout the test. A score of 53.82 percent was too low to qualify the pair for the freestyle.

Things got worse when Leslie Morse was rung out by the judge at C, Maribel Alonso de Quinzanos. Quinzanos had replaced Truppa on the panel. Kingston looked fabulous in the warm-up the day before, but he was clearly lame in the half-pass during the test.

“His warm-up was amazing,” said Morse. “When we got in the ring, he got a bit preoccupied with the crowd, but he seemed fine. Then he started to get fussy in the bridle. It felt like he was pulling and leaning, and he got on his forehand. In the half-pass, he started to take a few funny steps. His balance changed, and he got more and more on the forehand. I’m totally surprised.”

Lameness seemed to be catching when Sweden’s Minna Telde had to withdraw Don Charly from the freestyle competition after he came up lame on his right foreleg.

Only 11 of the original 15 horses actually competed in the Grand Prix freestyle.