Dressage to music tips from Grade Two National Champ,

Erin Orford

Derriere-sponsored rider Erin Orford has been competing in dressage both Nationally and Internationally for over 10 years, and has ridden up to Advanced Medium at Regional level. She contests para-dressage competitions at grade two level, and recently defended her KBIS Para Gold Grade Two title on Annabel Whittet’s Dimaggio mare, Dior, or Pimms, at the LeMieux National Dressage Championships.

We have to start our chat by mentioning the Paralympics, which Erin is always inspired by. In 2004, she went out to Athens to watch the Paralympic Games. “Watching the British team win Gold was incredible and I suddenly realised that this is what I wanted to do,” she tells us. The 2016 Paralympics were a triumph for Great Britain, so we asked Erin, who was a nominated entry on the long-list for 2016 and was selected as non-travelling reserve, what it would mean to be selected for Tokyo 2020. “The Olympics and Paralympics are the pinnacle of every athlete's career, and for me it's no different; I’d be honoured to be selected,” she says.

Musicality

Erin is a fan of dressage to music, saying it incorporates so many extra factors in terms of dressage competition, and is a real skill and discipline in itself. “It is a good opportunity to really show off your horse’s strengths,” she says. “You must show all the required movements described in the British Dressage test sheet for your chosen level, but you can also use additional movements currently in use in tests at this level; I have just started contesting elementary. It is so much fun, and there are lots of dressage to music CDs available with suitable music to ride to. An easy way to start is to search i-tunes for songs that suit you and your horse; it is then fun to play them as you watch a video of you riding your test; or, you could just play the song at home, as you run a metronome at your horse’s relevant beats per minute, or BPM - there are free metronomes online. You can easily work out the BPMs for your horse by videoing him, and counting the footfalls in each pace, in each minute,” Erin adds.

We asked Erin why she enjoys dressage to music so much. “When you break it down, it's a chance to show off your horse's strengths. My current music was put together professionally by Julie Geraghty from Equivisions. We worked on trying to find something that wasn't too heavy for Pimms, as she's quite light footed.”

Erin and Pimms recently contested their first Elementary freestyle routine at Bury Farm Equestrian Village, and enjoyed the experience. “Pimms strutted her stuff in the trot and the walk elements at Bury Farm, but unfortunately the judge spotted me walking during some of the compulsory canter movements. I'll be more subtle next time,” she jokes.

“It has been important for us to get the right balance musically, without it sounding like background music - I like a combination of crescendos and quieter areas of music,” Erin continues. “I find that I tend to ride to the music quite a lot when I am training, so I make sure that the music I use makes this work in my favour - in the past, I've found that if I have anything that's too quick, I can over ride, so I keep that in mind when choosing music,” she adds.