Paso Fino

It’s not just the smooth gait, proud looks and agility that made us fall in love with Paso Finos!

It’s their personality and disposition! They seem to all but “talk” to their handlers and riders, and they are very sensible and eager to please. Boredom is not in their vocabulary, – their minds are always busy! And smart they are, indeed!
Their whole social behavior seems to be very advanced compared to other horses – and they interact with people in a delightful way!

They are very energetic and lively, with a keen look of interest in their eyes, – yet they have great self- control and too much dignity to spook at silly things.

Too much “brio” (fiery, but controlled spirit) is great for impressing at shows and parades but will frighten cattle, so we select for a calmer mind, and try hard not to “bring out the brio”, as is done with show horses.
They are usually fairly stout but still elegant, and most stand around 14 to 14.2 hh., some do get taller, our stallion Dumas stands 15 hh.
Just right for getting on and off with no trouble! We feel they carry around 200 lbs comfortably on rough trails and at speed for many, many miles.

What makes them so smooth to ride?

The name says it all: Paso Fino in Spanish means: Fine Step! There are many gaited breeds, but none move with the Paso Fino’s fine step. He daintily and eagerly picks up and sets down each foot with grace and precision, and moves his body forward without any movement of his back or croup. It’s like sitting in a quiet center with the legs rotating with great speed under you.
His neck is held proudly by narture and he is very easy to collect. Since each foot sets down independent there is no period of suspension and no jarring as the hoof sets down, he simply seems to glide from one foot to the other.

Basic Differences

Note:
Many Paso Finos have been selected in the breeding programs for excellence in either Fino (very short, quick strides with hardly any forward movement) or Largo (fully extended form of gait, considered a true “single-foot”, with only one foot supporting the horse). While all Paso Finos can do the “Corto” ( slow to medium speed 4 beat gait), many have lost the ability to do either the Fino or the Largo.
Inquire about the horse’s range in gait before you buy or breed to it.!

Paso Finos are often distinguished by these terms:
—Pure “Colombian” or “Puerto Rican”
Paso Finos developed slightly different in their countries of origin, and to the day those differences can be seen. When the American Paso Fino Association was created, sires from both countries were nominated as foundation sires to preserve the talents that each country had bred for, and to cross them for a balanced result. Some breeders still prefer one or the other. The different “types” of Paso Finos as described below can be found in both countries of origin.

—Types of Paso Finos
The Fino Horse: Many Paso Finos are bred strictly for show purposes, with a very short but snappy stride and a rather hot disposition — the perfect horse to enter in “Classic Fino” classes where the horses move with up to 10 hoof beats per second, practically sizzling with pride and energy and yet moving forward slower than a walk! It is very exciting to watch and spectators in South America will jump to their feet and cheer on their favorites. The horses are often very small, between 13.3 hh and 14.1 hh, and quite fine boned, yet carry large men with ease. They must keep their incredible fast leg motion and cadence through a serious of very tight figure eights around judges or poles, and back up willingly. A trip over a long ” sounding board” lets the judges evaluate the eveness of their cadence, giving the audience a real treat to hear the statucco of the Paso Fino beat, never dublicated by any other breed in the world.
A well bred fino horse that executes his gait with passion will bring incredible high prices for stud fees or when sold.
Largo Horse: Some breeders have focussed their efforts more on producing horses for trail riding or speed gaiting contests. Largo refers to the most extended version of the Paso Finos gait. The Largo horse is often taller, with heavier legs and a less excitable disposition.
One of the most famous Largo Horses is Coral La Ce, who was not only entered in the Paso Fino Hall of Fame but who also chosen as one of two foundation sires of the North American Single Footing Horse Association (NASHA).

Performance Type:
This describes a horse suitable and bred to be shown in “Performance” classes at Paso Fino shows.
With as much energy and sizzle as the horses shown in “Classic Fino” classes, they now must extend their stride and show that they can keep they cadence while moving smoothly from taking short, quick strides to longer strides, covering more ground, and moving with rapid leg motion at the speed of a fast trot. Some leave the arena in a spectacular display of fast gait until they break into a gallop.
Pleasure Type: This is the modern North American version of the Paso Fino, frowned upon bytraditional breeders in their country of origin, but truly adored by the leisure riders. The sizzling temperament, called brio, is toned down a bit so that they are keen and alert, but have a calmer attitude. With it goes a lower neck carriage and more relaxed posture, and less tension put on the reins. Pleasure and trail classes at Paso Fino shows win many new fans, because a lot of people find it tiring to “ride the brakes” all the time, and enjoy a Paso Fino that is willing to take it a bit easier.

His Ancestors

The Paso Fino has been bred very carefully for 400 years in Columbia and Puerto Rico!
When the Spaniards began importing horses from Spain to build up a herd of suitable riding horses for conquering the New World, they selected their breeding stock carefully.
They needed a tough little horse that was: easy to keep, would carry them in a comfortable gait all day long, was surefooted in the rough mountains, would work their cattle, and was proud and classy enough to show off! From their homeland they chose the following breeds, that they crossed to develop the Paso Fino:
—The Andalusian was proud and showy, the master of maneuvering in small space, and a brave horse used for battle and bull fights in Spain. He was famous for having lighting fast responses and being truly reliable, so very easy to control in the middle of excitement, and still having so much spirit!
The Andalusian takes much of the credit for the Spaniard’s success in war in Europe, and also had a great influence on the development of the Warmbloods. He is a fairly compact horse with shorter legs and high action. He often has a roman nose that gives him a look of dignity. The colts are usually born black or brown, most turn white by the time they are ten.
—The Barb was extremely tough, surefooted and fast, and had endurance to spare. He had (and still has) one less vertebrae in the back like the Arabian, and a profile with a sloped nose, like the Andalusian. There were bays, blacks, duns and buckskins.
New research shows that the Spanish Barb is one of the main ancestors of the English Thoroughbred, more than the Arabian as was believed for a long time.
-–The Spanish Jennet (now extinct) had the wonderful ambling gait that had allowed the ancient Spaniards in their homeland, to ride comfortably long distances in full armour, to get to the battle field, leading their Andalusian war horses behind.
The ambling Jennet was also the horse of the well to do for centuries in Europe, only poor people had to ride trotting horses.A beautiful, proud, very easy to handle kind of a horse, the Jennet was often described as a horse ” best suited for a great king”. The Spanish Jennet was a fairly lightly built horse with white spots, blazes and stockings, and is also the ancestor of the Appaloosa ( which had a shuffling 4 beat gait before it was crossed with Quarter Horses and Thoroughbreds) and the Tiger horse.

When fast, high stepping trotting horses pulling carriages became popular, the smooth riding horse became less important in all of Europe. Soon the English Thoroughbred took over the horse world with the sport of fox hunting, steeple chasing, jumping and racing. The Spanish breeds were still used to improve riding horses through out Europe, but only the Andalusian was kept pure.
Now it became popular to learn how to ride a trotting horse and the gaited horses faded away.

But in the new world the Spanish horse thrived, and in the south American breeds, especially the Paso Fino and Peruvian Paso, no outside blood like draft or Thoroughbred was ever added.
There are still some bunches of Mustangs, now called Spanish Colonial horse, that stayed pure also, and these horses are the last that remain of the Spanish horse.
While the Mustangs developed mostly from the stock that was brought over form Spain at first and more or less was bred without a special goal, the Paso Fino breed was constantly improved by importing more chosen, prime stock from Spain. After many of the Spanish horses in Europe had been crossed to produce warmbloods, pure bred Andalusians were still available and the last horses imported from Spain to improve the breed, by this time mostly to Colombia.
Because the Spanish Barb was not a gaited breed (most of the Andalusians were gaited at that time, and the Jennet had very strong gaiting genes that usually carried through), there were some excellent horses produced that didn’t gait. These were bred to each other, creating the “Trote y Galop” horse, which looks and acts just kike a Paso Fino, but is not gaited.

By eleminating all non gaited stock hundreds of years ago from the breed,
the Paso Fino is now reliably naturally gaited, with foals showing their gait right from birth!

Gaits of the Paso Fino

Paso Fino is spanish for: fine walk. “The horse with the fine walk”, that is a great description!
While many gaited horses just look like ordinary horses at the walk, the Paso Fino moves with great energy, proud posture and quick, light steps, very purposeful and as if he is hardly touching the ground!
To compare the smoothness of one horse to another, the expert looks at the up and down movement of the horse’s croup, and the well gaited Paso Fino has a perfectly quiet croup at the walk, or at all speeds of gait!
The “Classic Fino” or “Fino Fino” is a showring gait that is even slower than the walk, but executed with incredible animation and a very fast beat, (up to 10 beats per second!), but the horse is so collected that his steps are tiny and he is almost stepping in place!
The Paso Fino is the only horse in the world that can “fino”, and it takes much luck and knowledge to manage to breed one that will excell in this discipline.
Because of this, great fino horses are very expensive, breeding fees go up to $2500 US or more.
The disadvantage is that horses bred to fino might or might not make excellent trail riding horses, depending on how much they are physically able to extend their stride, how high they lift their feet off the ground to avoid tripping, and on how hot they are bred temperment wise. A good competition fino horse is not allowed to extend his stride much under saddle, as it might affect his execution of gait, and will likely never been ridden across rough country.
For a ranch or trail horse, it is best not to have a horse that is too “fino”, a longer and a bit more relaxed style of gait is easier on the horse’s legs and his emotional state.

The “corto” is the medium speed gait, comparable to a slow trot, that all Paso Finos do naturally, and prefer to use, rather than walk or canter. They can corto for many, many miles without getting tired, and use this gait over any terrain.
A good corto, like the fino, should be square or even, without drifting toward the pace or trot, especially when shown in competition. For trail riding a shift towards trot, called trocha, is very comfortable, as long as it stays a 4 beat and doesn’t become a hard two beat trot, and is often used by a young horse, and also has tradionally been used for getting across rough ground. Once the horse becomes more supple under the rider and is collected a bit more, (which is rarely done when the ground is bumpy), his front end gets lighter and with more weight over the hind feet the timing becomes more even, the legs seem to move more individually. Paso Finos hardly ever do a real two beat trot, they soon figure out that what’s smoother for the rider is more comfortable for the horse, too!
A horse that drifts too much towards pace can be hard to correct and is unbalanced for sharp turns and on slippery or uneven ground.

The “largo” is the fastest and most extended form of gait, and some horses are bred to largo well, while others can’t get much faster than trot -speed without breaking into a canter.
It takes many many miles of riding at the walk and corto before a young horse can learn to largo. It is a gradual training and the natural ability limits the results. Some Paso Finos can largo as fast as most horses can go at a full galopp. When a horse “finds” his largo, often on a slight downhill slope when he breaks from the canter, it’s a real experience and incredible fun to ride!!! When the horse does a real largo or single-foot, he has only one foot on the ground and three in the air.

The horses seem to find it exciting also, as they float along with a totally quiet back, and still with such power, head held up and their hooves hardly touching the ground, concentrating on the very, very fast rythm of their legs, reaching as far as they can!

Some Largo horses have indeed reached 10 beats per second flying along in a largo, just like a good finohorse can do that many beats per second while barely moving forward!

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