Have a look to a freestyle (kür) competition.

The relationship between movement and music is immediately evident. It seems like the couple horse/rider is dancing. Dancing on rythm of the music.

In a well-done freestyle you'll notice that the most remarkable point is to match the tempo of the music to the tempo of the horse's gaits. Rhythm is a repeatable pattern. Tempo is the speed and rate of the action. Cadence is the rhytm of the horse in each one of its gaits: walk, trot, canter but also piaffe, passage and pirouette. It's matter of metronome (the number of footfalls in one minute time period): note that the judges have been instructed to watch the footfalls of the front legs of the horse, to see if they relate to music. It's a job for a musician. And if you are a composer too, the mix is perfect. Is the instrumentation the same? Is the music linked by genre? Does it hold together because of a theme? Does the program follow the "history" and the "sense" of the coreography?

Claudio Gabbiani was a rider too. He knows horses and he practiced dressage.

His sensitivity in understanding the horses's gaits and personalities has enabled many riders winning in freestyle competition, thanks to his contribution with the music selection and professional editing.