Tuesday, May 2, 2006

2006 Kentucky Horse Park All-American Freestyle Symposium - "A How To" Guideline

How To Lessons From the Experts

The "how-to" included lessons in how to choose music that matched the horse, count strides and beats, up the ante in degree of difficulty and create patterns and movements that wisely use the whole arena.

Since it’s a musical freestyle, choice of music is central to success and the first piece of advice is to pick music you like – you’ll be listening to it a lot.

Also remember that judges are looking to see that your choice of music fits your horse. This means, Steiner said, that using powerful music with a powerful horse can often be "overpowering" to the judge. Powerful music is best used with a smaller – or lazier – horse to give the illusion of power. That said, Ciotti-Gallo also noted that ponies should have music befitting a pony and young riders music that fits their age. Another way to view it is this – find music that fits your "style" and that of your horse.