What does cadence mean?

Cadence is the number of strides your horse carries out per minute: a stride is defined as all the events that separate two successive steps of the same limb. 

In order to verify the cadence, choose one of your horse’s limbs and count how many times it touches the ground within 1 minute. You will get an idea of the cadence. Otherwise, Motion does it for you and calculates an average rating of the number of steps or strides per minute at each gait.

Example cadence
Example of the cadence

To give you a general idea of the ranges in value, here are a few for horses during dressage/obstacle sessions:

Walk: 40 - 60 strides / min

Trot: 55 - 90 strides / min

Canter: 80 - 120 strides / min 

If you have values that aren’t in these ranges, it’s not a problem, and it’s not a bug in the app. Each horse has its own cadence; more or less slow according to the horse, but also due to other criteria such as experience, discipline etc.

In practice

When you're alone, you may confuse activity with haste. Remember to watch your rhythm when you are with your coach and try to have the same result when you ride alone.

Also, depending on the work you are doing, such as transitions within the gait for example, cadence regularity can drop if your horse rushes in the extensions and/or slows down too much in the collection. It is therefore a very good indicator to help you improve them. The goal is to get good marks, no matter what the exercise is :)


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