We will gladly calculate the tempo of your horse's gaits using a video (or in person for Bespoke Music Services). If you cannot send us a video or want to do the calculation yourself we have provided these instructions.

You will need to calculate the tempo (speed), measured in beats per minute (BPM) of your horse's Walk, Trot and Canter (Piaffe and Passage at higher levels).

Methods

Tap Tempo

"tap tempo" software allows you to tap along with the footfalls to get the average tempo. You can do this to a pre-recorded video or to an actual performance. We recommend Music Math for mac (osx) and Analog X TapTempo for PC (windows). Most digital metronomes have a similar function and are available cheaply from most music retailers. You can use a manual metronome and adjust it until it fits the footfalls but obviously this is less accurate.

Counting

Achieved by counting the footfalls within a minute or more and using the average. We don't think this is as accurate as tap tempo (above).

Walk and Trot

Some sources advise that you to count every time the front foot touches the ground. This will yield a slow, half time feel, which you might want. However, we believe it is better to count footfalls from both front legs to capture the bpm of walk and trot; a strong beat is important to create the impression that the horse is moving to the music.

Canter

Canter is slightly different. For canter you count every leading leg footfall.