prancing horses

[alonewiththemoon]

Freestyle dressage is truly an odd sport.  I just watched a horse gallivant around an arena perfectly in time to a medley which included an insturmental version of Karma Chameleon. 

I wonder if horses really hear the rhythm of the music and match their movements to it, or how much is the rider's cueing, or if it's some combination.   Horses hear their own hoofbeats all the time, they must have some instinctive awareness of rhythm.  And of course if you can train a horse to respond to audible commands, surely you can train a horse to respond to things like changes in the music, if you drill it over and over (or perhaps I am projecting my own dance choreography process here).  If anybody knows of any research about this, I'd love to hear about it.  The horses seem too much in time and too engaged in what they are doing to be oblivious--if I'm not anthropomorphizing the equines.  But still, the idea that once you show a horse how to do it, it could understand and perhaps even on some level enjoy dancing, if only to please their dance partner,  is madly intriguing.

One really wants to sneak into the Olympic stables at night, let the horses out of their stalls and play music for them, just to see...

Comments

[sbazzy.livejournal.com]

dressage is *incredibly* difficult and requires amazing skill on the rider's part. obviously, under normal circumstances, the rider is the one in command of the horses motion and rhythm. i'm assuming that in freestyle dressage, it really is the rider commanding the horse to change it's rhythm.

eeyrg would be the one to talk to about this.

[eeyrg.livejournal.com]

It's very common for trained horses (it takes years to train an FEI level horse, in fact Anky who won the Gold in Freestyle did it on a horse that is only 10 years old which is amazing) to participate on their own! Most of these horses have done their freestyle routine for a long time and know not only the music but can anticipate the changes that the rider will ask for. this is even true for non musical tests, do a test enough and eventually the horse knows what you're going to ask for. sounds good right? it's not always :)

[alonewiththemoon]

So they do associate the aural cues with what they are doing when they move--but do you think that they consciously (let's assume for the moment that we can use that word) are aware of the matching rhythms of their movements and the music, or are the exceptional horses just very skilled at picking up their riders' cues? Maybe that's something impossible to know.

It is amazng how young Anky's horse is--the commentators were saying that it usually takes about eight to ten years to train a horse to do this, and they don't generally start training them until they are mature adults.

I can definitely see that having a horse who thinks he knows better than you about what comes next could be a problem. I guess that's why they don't have *improvised* freestyle dressage :-)

[eeyrg.livejournal.com]

I believe a horse does respond to music. I know this because I've seen it soothe and agitate horses, so it's only fair to assume that when trained to perform, they use not only the riders cues but the music as well.

it's also truly a work of art to see Anky's horse not only perform at this level but to have an understanding of how supple and responsive he is at such a young age. Dressage may not look demanding to the general public, but since i've been riding an untrained 10 year old this past year and seeing the results of the training in both his flexibility, tone and mentality i can say it is a demanding sport! Not to mention the impact it has on my body, it's even demanding for the rider!

I sent scrabonia your link to this post, she's much more knowledgeable with this sport and can perhaps offer a more distinct opinion.

[scrabonia.livejournal.com]

Horses definitely hear the music and can react to it as noise. Are they responding to it in a rhythm/beat sense, hard to say but my guess would have to be no. More likely that rhythm is translated and communicated through the rider's body. Dressage is all about communication and training. Those horses are paying close attention to the rider every step of the way and every subtle move the rider makes means something to them.

I've ridden a few low level freestyles myself and distinctly remember that my second horse took a while to even calm down when riding to music, it clearly upset him and the fact that we were keeping time was only through my aids, not any natural will to do so on his part.

Then again just because I haven't seen the horse that will naturally prance around to Mozart doesn't mean they're not out there. It's a strange world, anything is possible.

[alonewiththemoon]

Cool, thanks for the experienced input!

Wah

[sanguineempathy.livejournal.com]

I keep missing the horse competitions :(

Re: Wah

[eeyrg.livejournal.com]

most of them were on at an ungodly hour... :(

Re: Wah

[sanguineempathy.livejournal.com]

I should have set the vcr - bleh

Re: Wah

[eeyrg.livejournal.com]

i did. :)

maybe we should have a viewing?
i think i have 99% of all the televised equestrian events.
including the Stadium Jumping which had a fantastic finale!

Re: Wah

[alonewiththemoon]

that would be cool--I haven't watched the team jumping yet, the individual competition is on tomorrow (live at an ungodly hour on Bravo, rebroadcast in the middle of the afternoon on NBC). I've been saving the tapes of the jumping for perseverate :)

Re: Wah

[eeyrg.livejournal.com]

Eventing was interesting and somewhat controversial. I still haven't decided on my own opinion of Bettina Hoy's "error" in jumping. *shrug*