IDS Donates Freestyle Audio System for Hoosier Horse Park Dressage Complex

IDS is pleased to announce the purchase and installation of a professional grade, all-weather audio system designed to provide high-quality Dressage Freestyle music reproduction at the Hoosier Horse Park.

In past years, show managers have struggled to broadcast music for freestyle classes using less than ideal equipment which all failed to meet our standards. They tried:

• the Public Address announcer’s bullhorns (loud but sound terrible playing music),
• portable “boom boxes” (way too quiet to hear throughout the arena, much less the spectator areas), or
• car stereos with engine on and doors open (an awkward setup all around).

So the IDS Board of Directors decided in 2020 to do it right and invest in a proper system, but COVID quickly shut down the world. Shows were cancelled, and the project was put on indefinite hold. By the middle of summer, we returned to showing and implemented an electronic scribe & scoring system as a COVID best practice. A couple years later, we felt ready to revisit the freestyle audio project, and the Board voted to re-affirm funding for a high-quality system.

 

System Design

We took inspiration from the system designed for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the installation that runs the Friday night freestyles all winter at the Global Dressage Festival in Wellington, FL. The goal was to have quality sound capable of appropriate volume evenly spread throughout the freestyle arena, bleachers, spectator pavilions, and the Dressage Office.

 

Sourcing the Equipment

The job was bid out to local contractors, but the decision was ultimately made to build it ourselves so we could invest in the best gear we could afford without paying markups or high installation costs. Dodd Technologies was kind enough to lend us their purchasing power to secure all the electronics at wholesale price.

 

Installation

Installation was led by IDS with lots of help from the Hoosier Horse Park staff and the Indiana Department of Corrections work release program.

We started with a temporary install to test speaker locations and system performance. In two and a half days, eight guys helped dig trenches, lay speaker wire, hang speakers, make connections, and tune the system in preparation for its initial test at the IDS May Schooling Show on May 7th, 2022. Three riders debuted their freestyles at Training, First, and Second Levels. Riders, judges, and spectators agreed the audio system did its job quite well.

So we moved into the next phase of permanent installation by sinking posts for the arena speakers, more trenching, installing conduit, preparing junction boxes, weatherproofing the outdoor speakers, and rack mounting the electronics. With three days of work, the team completed this final installation phase in time for the USDF/USEF rated Harmony in the Park show on May 20-22nd.

 

Our Commitment to the Hoosier Horse Park

IDS is committed to good stewardship of the Hoosier Horse Park, and has been a leader in designing, funding, and executing projects for the benefit of all competitors using the Hoosier Horse Park Dressage Complex. In addition to the new freestyle audio system, IDS also led a major 2022 Dressage Complex footing improvement project, the 2019 expansion of the lower arena to accommodate a full-size 20m x 60m ring, and the construction of the Warm-Up, In-Gate, and Spectator pavilions.