With the new popularity of trail riding, the gaited horse is celebrating a strong come back!

The pleasure of riding out on the trail is greatly enhanced when the gaited  horse allows the rider to sit comfortable at a very fast walk, or even faster, … rather than having to put up with the bouncing of a trot, or doing all their trail riding at a slow walk.

But a gaited horse is not just comfortable to ride leisurly down the trail, and flashy for the show ring in gaited classes!
More and more gaited horses are proving their abilities at endurance races and competitive trail rides, ghymkhanas, as ranch horses, and in events like reining, cutting and team penning.

Difference between trot and gait:
When the average horse breaks into a trot, thus challenging his rider’s ability to stay comfortable, the gaited horse speeds up but stays in the same 4 beat gait as the walk, moving his legs swiftly, and and giving his rider an incredibly smooth ride.
The style in which the horse accomplishes this varies from breed to breed, as do the names that describe the gait.
Single-foot, amble, rack,corto, largo,toelt or running walk are some. Most gaited horses can stay in gait as fast as a slow trot before they break into a canter, some can gait as fast as a gallop.
Why trot?
Trotting might be uncomfortable to ride, but is considered the most efficient way for a horse to cover long distances at speed.
It also gives the horse a very balanced support on uneven ground, because the diagonal pair of legs move together.
During the part of the stride where all feet are in the air (suspense) at the trot, much ground is covered.

The spring mechanism in the horse’s  foot helps bounce it right back up on impact, allowing the horse to move at a lofty trot with very little effort.
(Some gaited horses also utilize the hoove’s “spring” effect, even though they don’t have near the impact, or the bounce in the back.
This can be observed in horses with a very quick and light footfall, who seem to be able to keep up the fast rythm with no effort).

The Arabians, who are genetically the furthest away from gaited horse breeds, seem to have proved the theory of the trot being the most efficient gait  in endurance racing.
But recently more and more Mustangs (whose “shuffle”, is really often a 4 beat gait, even though it looks  like a trot), are showing up and doing well in even the toughest 100 mile endurance races, and horses from many gaited breeds can hold their own in a shorter endurance race, and do very well in  competitive trail rides, from 25 to 100 miles.History of the gaited horse:
Whether a horse gaits or trots depends on genetics, and for many centuries the Europeans preferred gaited horses, only the poor bounced along on trotters. But the arrival of the horse drawn vehicles and the thrill of steeple – chasing and fox hunting over fences shifted the favor towards trotting horses.  Many of the horses raised in Europe were bought by the armed forces, who selected the bigger trotting horses.  The Spaniards were the last to breed gaited horses and sent many of them to the New World, where these smooth to ride horses were cherished and considered ideal because of the vastness of the country.

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Ambling Gaits of Horses

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There are a significant number of four-beat intermediate gaits. Though there are differences in footfall patterns and speed, historically they were once grouped together and collectively referred to as the “amble.” Today, especially in the United States, horses that are able to do an ambling gait are referred to as “gaited.”

All ambling gaits are faster than a walk but usually slower than a canter. They are smoother for a rider than either a trot or a pace and most can be sustained for relatively long periods of time, making them particularly desirable for trail riding and other tasks where a rider must spend long periods of time in the saddle.

There are two basic types: lateral, wherein the front and hind feet on the same side move in sequence, and diagonal, where the front and hind feet on opposite sides move in sequence.

Not all horses can perform an ambling gait. However, many breeds can be trained to produce them, and there are several breeds of horses who inherit the ability to perform these gaits either naturally from birth or with a minimal amount of training.

The major ambling gaits include:

• The fox trot is most often associated with the Missouri Foxtrotter breed, but is also seen under different names in other gaited breeds. The fox trot is a four-beat diagonal gait in which the front foot of the diagonal pair lands before the hind.
• “Paso” gaits include a range of smooth intermediate lateral ambling gaits characteristic of the Peruvian Pasoand Paso Fino. The Paso Fino’s speed variations are called (from slowest to fastest) the paso fino, paso corto, and paso largo. The Peruvian Paso has a lateral gait known as the “Paso Llano,” which is characterized by an elongated and lateral motion of the front shoulder known as “Termino.”
• The rack or racking is a lateral gait most commonly associated with the Five-Gaited American Saddlebred. In the rack, the speed is increased to be approximately that of the pace, but it is a four-beat gait with equal intervals between each beat.
• The Running Walk, a four-beat lateral gait with footfalls in the same sequence as the regular walk, but characterized by greater speed and smoothness. It is a distinctive natural gait of the Tennessee Walking Horse.
• The slow gait is a general term for several slightly different lateral gaits that follow the same general footfall pattern in that lateral pairs of legs move forward in sequence, but the rhythm and collection of the movements are different. Terms for various slow gaits include the stepping pace and singlefoot.
• The Tölt (also, less correctly, Tolt) is a gait that is often described as being unique to the Icelandic Horse. In its pure form, the footfalls are the same as in rack, but the Icelandic horse is bred for more freedom and liquidity of movement. Some breeds of horses that are related to the Icelandic horse, living in the Faroe Islands and Norway, also tölt.





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