Freestyle music designers

Kelly Hobden on forming Equidance with her non-horsey husband, Tony, how the freestyle routine comes to life – and the occasion when dressage rider Anna Ross burst into song mid-test

- Victoria Goff

I’ve been immersed in the horse world since I was 10. 

I used to showjump, then later I went to Hartpury to do a BSc in equine sports science. I got my BHSAI, and retrained racehorses for several years, then I did a post-graduate diploma and an MSc in equestrian research. Before forming Equidance, my full-time job was doing equine thermal imaging.

When we first met, my husband Tony was terrified of horses.

On our first date, I took him to the yard and casually asked him to push my mare back into her stable – he was petrified.

In 2017, we were watching a freestyle class at the winter championships and Tony kept whispering, “This music is terrible, who edits this stuff?” I told him, “If you think you can do better, then do it,” and that’s how Equidance was formed. He now has a purpose-built studio, but to start with he set up a studio in his mum’s spare room.

Tony has produced music for countless bands, artists and television programmes, and when we met he had another job teaching music production at a local university. 

Within two months of forming Equidance, he left that to concentrate solely on the business. The first rider he offered to do music for was Nicola Buchanan, so his first-ever freestyle track was a grand prix test at the Hartpury Festival of Dressage.