Hello, horse friends! This'll have to be a quick one. But I just figured out an easy way to check the regularity of footfalls in online videos, and I thought I'd share.
First, join the YouTube HTML Beta program (requires a fairly recent browser, but I'm no computer whiz and mine is updated enough.) To slow down a video, click the cog-shaped settings button at the bottom right corner of the video. The options are to speed it up by 2x and 1.5x, or to slow it down by 0.5x or 0.25x. (You'll want to mute the video before changing the speed so the sound isn't obnoxious, but if you're watching horse sales videos, you've probably done that already.)
Then, open a second browser window and get an online metronome going. (That happens to be the most user friendly one I could find in my brief internet search, but I am sure that there are plenty of other options.) And then it's just a matter of playing around with the metronome to figure out the approximate beat.
My main motivation for doing this (other than avoiding doing Boring Grown-Up Things in favor of doing Fun Horse Things that I can pretend are Serious Work Things) is to check the regularity of the walk in sales videos. I feel like I can spot a glaringly off trot or canter, but I am not all that confident about being able to eyeball the walk. It's also turned out to be a useful exercise for me in looking at the sequence of footfalls in the canter work. (I feel for horses that get confused learning how to do flying lead changes - it's a lot of legs moving around to keep track of.)
-Beth
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