The level of milk production at dry-off (DO) is a risk factor for new Inframammary infections during the dry period and may negatively affect cure rates (CR). The objectives of this study were to investigate the CR and the new infection rate (NIR) when applying at DO 2 methods: gradual or abrupt (no intervention to decrease milk production before DO). Data from 42,633 dairy cows from 656 Dutch commercial herds were analyzed. Discrimination between gradual and abrupt DO was obtained by analyzing daily milk yield and frequency of milking in the last 60 d before DO. A multi-layer perceptron classification algorithm was trained on a subset of lactation curves using an expert-based labeling approach based on prior knowledge and experience in the field and subsequently run over the 42,633 animal data set to predict the respective DO method. The impact on CR and NIR was studied in 28,566 cows with eligible milk recording data by comparing the last SCC recording before DO and the first SCC recording after calving at cow level. Cows were classified as infected if the level of SCC was ≥200,000 cells/mL. Considering this threshold, CR was calculated as the proportion of non-infected cows after calving of the infected cows at DO. NIR was calculated as the proportion of infected cows at calving of the non-infected cows at DO. Information of intramammary antibiotics at DO was not available. According to the classification algorithm, 32% of the animals involved in the analysis underwent a gradual DO and the remaining 68% an abrupt DO. Only 26% of herds applied the same dry-off management to all cows. Higher producing herds were associated with a greater share of gradually dried off animals. The CR and NIR were 71.2% and 19.0% respectively in animals with gradual DO and 72.5% and 17.1% in animals with abrupt DO. A 2-tailed proportion z-test with α = 0.05 indicated that reducing the milk production at dry-off gradually resulted in higher NIR (z-score = 3.3) and did not increase CR (z-score = −1.1) during the dry period compared with animals dried-off abruptly.