ON MY TACKBOX
Movement plus music equals magic The selling point of any great freestyle dressage test is that the music should tell a story, writes FIONA PORTEOUS, who is passionate about matching the horse to the rhythm.
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f you’re not a rider, watching dressage can sometimes be, dare I say it, boring. Showjumping and eventing are true spectator sports, but dressage is all about accuracy and obedience and to someone who doesn’t ride it can get a little lost in translation. Everybody knows that when kids start riding most of them say dressage is their least favourite discipline. They would much prefer to go to Pony Club to jump, sport or even hack. It’s not until we understand that dressage is the basis of nearly all other disciplines of horsemanship that we begin to appreciate the beauty of the technique and the pure magic of dressage. I was definitely one of these kids who avoided dressage because I didn’t really understand it. What do you mean you ride from the inside leg to the outside rein? What the? Don’t you just pull the left rein when you want to turn left? Then I started having lessons and another world opened up before me. When I was 20 I gave away horses for a city career. I found the world of health and fitness and started my career in aerobics instructing and personal
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training. 20 years ago aerobics was all freestyle and classes were packed to the rafters with sweaty aerobic junkies frothing at the bit (to use a horse metaphor) for their next big routine with pumping music and highly choreographed routines in which a sea of people all moved in unison to the pounding beat. I had found my new addiction - choreographing routines to music. It was another 15 years before I got back into the world of horses. I did my level 1 coach education and quickly realised my career in the fitness industry was taking second position to my love of horses. I discovered Freestyle Dressage after I’d been competing in dressage for a few years but found that I was really not being challenged enough – that was when I had a lightbulb moment and started combining both my love of horses and my love of music. The beauty of freestyle dressage is you can stay within your level of competition and add a freestyle test as well. You make up your own test - as long as you execute all the compulsories outlined at your level of competition. You also get to choose your own music. Choosing your music is definitely the
H O R S E V I B E S M A G A Z I N E - M AY 2 0 1 9
hardest and most challenging thing about freestyle. You might think that using something you truly love will work for you but the people you have to impress are the judges so thinking along those lines is a good idea. A good freestyle test should look like the horse is dancing and is in perfect time with the music. Great music choice will also showcase the horse’s strengths and enhance them even more. Some riders who aren’t as confident will choose music that resembles background music but I feel this isn’t in the spirit
