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Virtually Horses |
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The Rider |
Gaits | |
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The four basic gaits of a horse are: walk,
trot, canter and gallop. There are several breeds of horse which
naturally have additional gaits such as the Icelandic pony, however for
the purposes of these pages we will concentrate on the four basic gaits of
the horse and look at a few of the variations on those gaits that you may
learn about during your riding lessons.
We also have specialist pages on each gait for riding aims and exercises for Novice and Intermediate levels. |
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| On This Page | The Walk | |
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The Walk The Trot The Canter The Gallop Other Gaits |
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 The walk is a four
beat gait. Each hoof leaves the ground at a different time, starting
with a hind leg, the foreleg on the same side then the other hind leg and
foreleg, during this the horse's body swings gently with each stride (just
as your own hips swing when you walk.) To ride correctly at the walk
you must allow your hips and stomach gently rock back and forth with the
motion of the horse's stride. The rest of your body, especially your
head should remain almost motionless.
The horse's head and neck will move with each stride and it is especially important that your hands and forearms are relaxed enough to softly follow this movement while keeping a soft contact with the horse's mouth. |
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| Related Pages | ||
| Anatomy |
There are four subdivisions
of the walk in dressage; medium, collected, extended and free. The Medium walk is a free, unconstrained movement of moderate extension. The steps are even and distinctly marked with the hindfeet touching the ground in front of the prints made by the forefeet. The Collected walk is when the horse moves forward with neck raised and arched and with the head in a near-vertical position. The hindlegs are engaged energetically under the body with good hock action. The steps are more elevated and shorter than in medium walk because of the additional flexion of the joints. The hindfeet touch the ground behind the prints of the forefeet. In Extended walk the horse, with head and neck extended, covers as much ground as possible with each stride without losing the regularity of the four beat pace. The hindfeet touch the ground clearly in front of the prints of the forefeet. In the Free walk the horse moves forward in extended outline with absolute freedom of head and neck. It is a pace of rest which nonetheless conforms to the basic four beats.
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| The Trot | ||
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The trot is a two beat gait. The horse's legs
move in diagonal pairs, with a moment of suspension between each stride.
This can cause this to be one of the more difficult gaits to master as a
new rider. During the trot the horse's head will be held higher than
at the walk and will remain almost still in relation to you. You will
learn two different riding styles for the trot.
The first is the rising trot (known as
'posting' in America) and later you will learn to sit at the trot.
You may think that this is back-to-front until you ride the trot for the
first time. Sitting at the trot requires balance, practice and the
ability to both grip and relax into the correct riding position, move and
remain still, so that you do not bounce around in the saddle or more
particularly bounce off your mount!
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The trot also has different
paces, it may be; working, medium, collected or extended. In the collected trot the neck is raised and the head is carried in the vertical position. The hocks are very well engaged under the body and the steps elevated and shorter. Impulsion is energetic, notwithstanding the slower movement, and the horse becomes lighter and increasingly mobile. Working trot is the pace between medium and collected trot, being inclined more towards the latter. It is the pace employed in horses not yet capable of full collection. In fact, it is the approach to the collected pace. Medium trot is the pace between the extended and collected trot and is nearer to the extended than the collected pace. It is rounder than the full extended trot but displays energy, suppleness and balance and good engagement of the hocks. The hindfeet touch the ground in the prints of the fore feet In the extended trot the horse covers as much ground as possible with a lengthened stride. The neck is extended and as a result of impulsion from the quarters use is made of the shoulders to cover more ground without elevating the action. In the spectrum of the trot paces the two extremes are collection and extension.
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| The Canter | ||
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The canter is a three beat gait. The legs generally working in the
following sequence; outside hind, inside hind and outside fore move
forward together then finally the inside foreleg, at this time there is a
period where all four feet are off the ground.
This is a gait where you will first feel that your horse is going at speed, even in a slow canter. It is also a time when you will really have to work on your riding skills to achieve correct transitions from either walk or trot into a canter and back again. If your seat, balance or legs are not correct at this stage you will either not achieve a canter or will feel very insecure. feedback article 'cantering on' Like the trot, in dressage the canter may be; working, medium, collected or extended. The descriptions of these paces in the trot also apply at the canter.
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The
Gallop |
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| The Gallop | ||
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The gallop is a four beat gait like the walk
but now the horse extends to his full reach and speed. There is also
considerable variation in the sequence of movements according to the speed
of the gallop. It is unlikely that you will gallop during your lessons and
it should not be ridden until you have achieved a safe and secure seat and
are confident about your riding ability.
A fast canter is often mistaken for the
gallop by beginners but the gallop is never mistaken when it is first
achieved, the horse lengthens, flattens and accelerates. The
distinctive rocking motion of the canter is lost and because this is a
four beat gait the horse will usually straighten. The gallop is not ridden at all in
dressage, although just to be confusing there is a European riding school
term 'galop' which means to canter and the 'in hand' gallop may be ridden
in hack or hunter shows. The gallop is most usually ridden in
a light forward seat (out of the saddle with your weight in your heels) so
you must be able to do this without losing balance and/or hanging on to
your horse by the reins. |
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| More Exotic Gaits | ||
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With the exception of
the of the Icelandic pony, the more exotic or artificial gaits are
confined to the American continent which has; the American Saddlebred and
the Tennessee Walker as the principal exponents. Additionally there
is also the Paso, developed in Peru some 300 years ago from the Spanish
and Barb imports and which is now popular in America as the American Paso
Fino. Interestingly, archeological finds infer that the running walk
may have been a natural pace of prehistoric equids.
Pacing is a harness racing gait in which the legs move in lateral pairs. There are some Russian breeds which pace naturally, as of course do some 'standardbreds', the supreme harness racer. Interestingly, the trot is still the dominant natural pace for standardbreds, but there are trotters who result from pacing parents and vice-versa and of course some horses with no particular preference who are then trained to either gait. The Icelandic pony has been bred for its gaits, as the sole form of transport for much of the history of Iceland, these sturdy ponies were used for all purposes from pulling loaded sleds across frozen land to swimming rivers. The five gaits of the Icelandic pony are the walk, trot, gallop and two specialist gaits, the pace and the tolt. The pace is a lateral gait and when racing the pony starts at a gallop and must change to the pace within 50m. The Tolt is a running walk and is used when covering broken ground. It is a gait of four even beats,and allows the pony to accelerate from a stop to great speed.
The Tennessee Walker's distinctive feature is the four-beat running walk in which the forefoot touches down just before the hindfoot on the opposite side. The hindfoot oversteps by some 6 to 8 inches and at full speed, upwards of 15 mph (24 kmph) can be obtained. In both the American Saddlebred and the Tennessee Walker the forefeet are grown and weighted to exaggerate the action and chains are nearly always attached round the pasterns for the same purpose. Less happily, some horses are also blistered on the forelegs so that the subsequent irritation, exacerbated by the chain, will cause an even greater lift of the feet. Nonetheless these are gaits that are very much in the American horse tradition. The gait of the Peruvian Paso is the same as the name, the paso. It is a natural gait resembling the rack, the running walk and the pace but is not, in fact, any one of those. The quarters are held low, like those of the Tennessee Walker and the hindlegs overstepping the prints of the forefeet move forward in a straight line while the forelegs operate in a high paddling action. It sounds a very uneconomical movement but it is said to be very comfortable and the Peruvian Paso is capable of maintaining it for long periods over rough going at an easy 10 to 11 mph (16 to 18 kmph), which can be increased to 15 mph (24 kmph) for short bursts over better ground. |
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The
American Saddlebred is trained and shown either as a three gaited
horse, in walk, trot and canter, or as a five gaited horse who performs
the additional stepping pace and 'singlefoot' rack. The former is the slow
gait performed with brilliant, exaggerated action, while the latter, still
a fourbeat gait, is brilliant and very fast. In both the back is held
level and the rider is able to sit in great comfort without rising from
the saddle.