I wrote about creating my first Freestyle last August when I had just completed my 1st Level Freestyle at a show (that blog is full of good info on how I created that Freestyle). But in quick summary, I was inspired by Sandra Beaulieu and her book Freestyle: The Ultimate Guide to Riding, Training and Competing to Music and a talk she did for our local CDS chapter. She made it sound fun. She made it sound doable. Her book gave a LOT of very useful information for making sure things went well. I HIGHLY recommend the book if you intend to try creating your own Freestyle (there’s a section with specific patterns and movements for different levels which is super helpful). Through her Facebook group (highly recommend you check it out) I learned about the free program Audacity to edit music and also was able to get questions answered by a group of like-minded freestyle enthusiasts. Creating the floorplan was fun and pretty easy for me, however doing the music was a big learning curve the first time around (and honestly…three Freestyle levels later…the music is still my weakness).
Since that first show…what started as a goal to do something different and fun while we were struggling with lead changes turned into a whole giant project on its own. Lead changes got tossed to the side a little bit (we did attempt a couple of 4th Levels…but dropped down again after failing to complete the changes at the shows). I ended up spending a LOT of time focusing on polishing up Freestyle segments and really working on lower level basics to help that along. That project turned into the goal of earning my Freestyle Bar and try and qualify for as many awards as possible. It gave me the busiest show season in years (I did 6 shows this year…I haven’t done that many in a year since 2018!). I did my first Freestyle at the Yarra Yarra summer show (early July) and I finished my last score for my Bronze Freestyle Bar exactly a year later at the same show, but this project did span two show seasons.
Freestyle became a lifestyle for me for 2023 and 2024…shows became different. Regular tests became warm ups to try to get the best out of my freestyle with very little concern for score and no embarrassment for using it for schooling. If I have to use the whip…okay. If I have to kick a little more aggressively than normal…fine. If I need to half halt into oblivion…fine. Whatever it was going to take to make the Freestyle performance shine. Shows became fun. I mean…when you no longer care about the score of those regular tests…and the thing you do care about is something YOU made to suit your horse with music you love…well…it changes the game. If you need any more explanation of how much doing Freestyle helped me emotionally/mentally for showing…I followed up the Freestyle shows ending with a huge jump up to PSG (our last Freestyle show we did 2nd level Test 1 and 2nd Level Freestyle). Why? You only live one. Horses die on the daily. I just decided to go with it and I was SO chill…it was almost concerning. When things didn’t go our way…I didn’t freak. I didn’t panic. I didn’t ball of anxiety…I just calmly went on with it. I was thrilled with the show despite it not being 60%’s because…we did it. I did it calmly feeling no pressure. And Jax held it together despite all the elements to the day making it not an easy show for him. The Freestyle Lifestyle changed my mental game around showing. It really made it fun in a whole new way and really took the pressure off. I’ll always be thankful for that.
Anyway…back to the Freestyle Bar. How did I get it done so fast? Well
1. Obviously I had a horse that could do all three levels already at the time…though 3rd was in NO WAY easy for Jax with the flying changes still being a huge problem).
2. I used the same selections of music for all three levels (1st, 2nd and 3rd), so I only had to rework the music each time to fit the new floorplan (which was still a chunk of work…but a LOT less work than trying to find new music to suit Jax each level). Each time I reworked my music it got easier. I figured out how to phrase the music better, and how to make sure the volume was pretty even across the whole test so as to not blow out people’s ears on some parts and not be able to hear it other parts. I figured out how to clip and reuse sections to extend or shrink sections to match the test. I learned how to add in other sound tracks to emphasize transitions (namely the lead changes at 3rd level). I COULD have continued to play with my music between shows to try and improve interpretation…but honestly…it’s not my strong point at all…and I felt that after I got the 2nd level and 3rd level music done…I just kept it the same. I wasn’t planning on going to Regional Championships or USDF Dressage Finals…so it didn’t really matter. I did no edits between shows. I got good comments about the music from most judges for 2nd and 3rd Levels so I thought it best to just not mess with it too much.
3. Most important to our success during this experience, I quickly learned how you can use your floorplan to really highlight and hide the things your horse is good and bad at to your best advantage. I highlight the canter early in all three because Jax’s trot improves VASTLY after he’s cantered like a lot of horses. The floorplan for 2nd Level is my favorite because of Jax’s ability to do the work with ease. Stepping down and having a horse with super counter canter…being able to do a difficult canter section really helped our scores a lot and I REALLY went with as hard a canter/counter canter section I could think of.
Here’s what we did: We entered and halted immediately on centerline. Proceed walk few steps into walk/canter transition left lead. Straight on center line to a half circle left to V and then at A we did a wild serpentine – a 15 m half circle in true canter, 15 m half circle back to X in counter canter, Walk at X, pick up the counter canter (right lead) and 15 m half circle counter canter to half 15 m circle true canter. We followed that up with a medium across the diagonal to V with a WALK transition at V without coming back other than a half halt stride from the medium, and a transition to the left lead canter again…then came the walk section. The walk section was nothing fancy…test like. The trot section was fairly test like as well as there is a lot of required movements at 2nd level that required a lot of floor used (haunches in both ways, shoulder in both ways, and a medium trot. I couldn’t figure out a way to create the floorplan in a creative way and stay under the time so I ended up just doing some test-like shoulder in to medium both directions and a haunches in half circle half circle haunches in. I kept the lateral work on the wall as he is much weaker with them one direction and it shows if we try to do them off the wall. (If you want to watch this test you can here).
I got several comments from the judges about the degree of difficulty being good and the music being suitable for Jax. One judge said “I love the risk you took in the counter canter loop to simple change.” The first judge I showed it with didn’t realize we were doing counter canter…and asked me after the test was over where our 2nd counter canter was. She didn’t even catch that we did a counter canter to a counter canter Jax does it so balanced. When I told her the floorplan she quickly realized I HAD to have done both counter canters and she awarded me with a nice score on those counter canters because he was so balanced in them. LOL. So that addition helped my degree of difficulty score by a LOT and those counter canters got good scores each ride (7’s and 8’s).
In a similar manner…I worked our 3rd level Freestyle to show Jax to his best advantage…and that was to HIDE the lead changes. So Jax has done okay at 3rd level. We aren’t getting any high points that’s for sure. We have never gotten both changes clean in a regular 3rd level test…and sometimes we don’t get either. So I knew if I wanted to clear the hurdle of the 3rd Level Freestyle I needed to be clever if I wanted two scores over 65%.
This is how we did it: I set up the canter section as a fairly steep halfpass from the corner to a handful of strides before X with a lead change at X and immediate half circle in the direction of the new change. That did a few things for us.
1. It showed off his rather decent half pass ability.
2. It hid the change a bit from the judge as she watching it from directly behind and the immediate circle helped mask any crookedness a little bit.
3. Doing the change immediately out of the half pass and into a direction change helped us actually achieve a flying change. While not always straight, we did actually accomplish both flying changes in two of our 3 tests this way. Miracle of miracles. We got scores on the changes ranging from 5 to 7…and in straight 3rd level tests we’ve gotten a range of 2 – 7 with the average for our bad direction change being a 3 and the average of the other being a 6. LOL. So a 5 to a 7 on the Freestyle is a huge improvement and is completely due to the clever placement in the test.
I did a slightly more meandering walk section which allowed me to mess around based on if I was ahead or behind my music (which for some reason seemed to happen a lot this test…getting ahead or behind). I also in the trot section kept his shoulder ins to the wall and went straight into a half pass out of that shoulder in position…which was a great choice and we also ended up doing very steep half passes in the trot hitting centerline between I and G…so got some degree of difficulty boost there from one of the judges we showed it for. It did take 3 shows to get 2 65%’s (as one show we got like a painful 64.3%). Sorry I don’t seem to have a video of the 3rd Level test…but the 1st Level one is here if you want to see it.
All in all we managed:
1st Level – 67.389% and 73.333%
2nd Level – 66.553%, 71.579%, 72.579%
3rd Level – 70%, 64.35%, 65.1%
As you can see it got a little tougher at 3rd (however those two judges were particularly low scoring in general). Jax and I completed all 2nd and 3rd level freestyles this season (2024) and so we’ve qualified ourselves for several All Breeds awards at both levels and for the AA Musical Freestyle Year End Award (we finished 7th place nationally for 2nd Level AA Freestyle). We also finished 14th for Open Musical Freestyle as well which feels like a huge accomplishment against such a large group of riders all over the country (and yes that’s my good friend Tara Korde at #1 in both!!! She’s the owner of The Simple Equine and one of the coolest ladies ever). And of course we earned that awesome Bronze Bar.
I did start to feel quite exhausted with showing and almost stopped after I earned the Bronze Bar in June…but I’m so glad I went to our last show of the season and got to show our 2nd Level Freestyle in front of a large audience and get a super score! It was the icing on the cake for the year. We also got to do a champagne ride which was hilarious…and we placed 2nd (though we probably would have won if I hadn’t taken a drink out of my glass to see what they gave us for the ride…spoiler alert…water).
For now…my Freestyle Lifestyle is over…or on hold. Going forward it is going to be ALL in on the changes, piaffe/passage/pirouettes and getting that Silver Medal finally finished. It’s make or break now I feel with Jax and I really feel that he’s going to click together soon. The goal all along has been the Silver Medal. Losing Spice and being so close to earning it was hard…and Jax came into my life 5 years ago knowing very little and not even wanting to canter. I knew that I couldn’t afford a horse ready to do PSG…so I have been spending all this time making one. Once those changes click…we’re home free all the way to GP. We’re almost there. We will get back to Freestyles eventually to get that Silver Bar…but we need that Silver Medal first.
If you’re interested in joining Sandra’s new Freestyle Course – Dressage Musical Freestyle from A to Z (which I REALLY wish I’d had during the process) you can check it out here. I’ve been going through the course for the fun of it and she’s done a really excellent job. Also don’t sleep on her book or joining her Facebook Group – Create a Dressage Musical Freestyle. I also just recently did a video Q&A with her and some of her Facebook Group members if you’d like to go hear more (here).
Amazing photos from the excellent Tamera with the Camera!
