Equestrian sponsors should take steps to mount a campaign with REALdressage2music
The compulsory music and marking system used for REALdressage2music competitions was originally created for use in conjunction with current British Dressage Freestyle2Music testing.
The objective was to help redress the current system's imbalance of having 70% of marks being awarded for technical merit while allowing only a subjective and arbitrary 'general impression' mark for the music element.
Consideration was also given to the fact that current competitors who have music professionally fitted to an existing floor plan are in fact gaining advantage from a skill that is not theirs.
The newly written Compulsory Music system underwent extensive trials in New Zealand from November 2009 to March 2010. The trials themselves were very successful, and the choices of attractive music and simple application concept gave rise to many 'straight dressage' competitors asking to run the compulsory section as a stand-alone competition, so that they could experience the joy they witnessed in others riding to music.
Suitable
The standalone competitions went ahead at Level 2/3 (Novice/Elementary) in three New Zealand venues with all entrants completing questionnaires about their experience.
The overriding conclusions as to why so many dressage riders had not previously ridden Freestyle2Music were related to a lack of ability and time needed to produce suitable music for themselves: costs of having it done professionally were also a major disincentive.
While everyone who took part perceived that they themselves were more relaxed and that their horses moved better while riding to music, they believed that sourcing suitable music and the editing required to make an acceptable soundtrack for Freestyle was a skill unrelated to equestrianism and many found the prospect of doing it themselves bemusing.
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