Dances with Horses at MHC
January 28, 2010
Posted: January 28, 2010
The art of freestyle dressage—riders and their horses moving through a series of movements in time to music—appears effortless. But the students in Mount Holyoke’s J-Term course, Musical Freestyle 101, know otherwise. Under the instruction of Meredith Baker ’11, an experienced dressage freestyle rider, and Paula Pierce, director of the MHC Equestrian Center, five determined riders learned the basics of freestyle and created their own routines, which they performed on the last day of class.
Students spent the first two class sessions analyzing a variety of freestyle videos and timing their horses’ footfalls at walk, trot, and canter. One rider worked with her own horse, the others rode school horses. Then, each student chose her music, keeping in mind rhythm, tempo, and personality of her horse.
According to Baker, the choice of music is critical to the success of the freestyle. “Horses definitely respond to music. Some horses like certain music and dislike other music.” She half-jokingly cautioned the class not to choose music they really like. “You have to listen to it so often you’ll never want to hear it again,” she said.
Baker did her first freestyle at a national U.S. Pony Club competition seven years ago and has since done three more. “I learned how to create my own freestyles because it’s really expensive to have a professional do it for you,” she said. “So I got a cheap music editing program and went to a workshop and took it from there.”
Baker supervised a marathon music session in the Dwight media lab, helping each student splice musical riffs with Garage Band software. While the students were experienced riders, they had little or no music editing experience, and there were inevitable moments of frustration as they worked with the unfamiliar software. “Even though you might want to throw your computer out the window sometimes, it’s still fun,” Baker said.
Colleen Fairchild ’13 put together music from The Go! Team. “I wanted something kind of spunky for my pony,” she said, referring to her Morgan mare, Marley.
Caitlin Walsh ’12 used the Ghostbusters theme music for her freestyle on Seuss, a young Appaloosa gelding. “It’s a great choice for him,” Pierce said. “It says ‘goofy spotted horse!’ ”
For Jake, a big-boned, gray veteran of the College’s dressage program, Emme Johnston ’10, captain of the MHC dressage team, chose several movie theme songs, including battle music from The Chronicles of Narnia.
“That music fits Jake perfectly,” Baker said. Indeed, when Jake’s music came over the loudspeakers, his ears pricked up and he seemed to stand proudly at attention. As Johnston and Jake performed their freestyle on the last day of class, the impression was nothing less than majestic. “He looked like a war horse going into battle,” said Pierce.
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