At a walk the hose will always have one foot raised and the other three feet on the ground except for a brief moment when weight is being transferred from one foot to another. The horse moves its head and neck in a slight up and down pattern that helps maintain balance. The trot is a two beat gait that may be uncomfortable for the beginning rider. In the trot, one front foot and its opposite hind foot come down at the same time, making a two-beat rhythm.
The trot has a wide variation in possible speeds, but averages about 8 miles per hour. A very slow trot is sometimes referred to as a jog. The trot is the working gait for a horse since horses in good condition can maintain a working trot for hours.
Because the trot is such a safe and efficient gait for a horse, learning to ride the trot correctly is an important component in almost all equestrian disciplines. Since each time the diagonal pair of legs hits the ground, the rider can be jolted upwards out of the saddle, most riders 'post' to the trot by rising up and down in rhythm with the horse to avoid being jolted.
Posting is easy on the horse's back, and, once mastered, is also easy on the rider. The lope is an asymmetrical gait left lead or right lead.
This three beat gait is fun to ride, but can be unnerving to beginning riders. In the canter, one hind leg strikes the ground first, and then the other hind leg and one foreleg come down together, the the other foreleg strikes the ground. This movement creates a three-beat rhythm that is usually faster than the average trot, but slower than a gallop. The average speed of a canter is between 10 and 17 miles per hour. This distinct three beat rhythm followed by a rest and then immediately afterwards a recurrence of the three beats followed by another rest is easy to distinguish.
The lope is a western term for canter. The gallop is an asymmetrical high speed four beat gait. This gait is thrilling for the rider and during the suspension phase when all feet are off the ground it feels like flying. In the gallop, the basic canter movement is sped up so that all four feet are off the ground for a suspended moment. It is the fastest gait of a horse averaging about 25 to 30 miles per hour and is used in the wild when the horse needs to flee from a predator or cover a short distance quickly.
Most horses need to rest after galloping for more than a mile or two. The walk is a gait with four beats. It does not have a moment of suspension and it averages 4 mph. The trot has two beats, averages 6 mph and has a moment of suspension.
The legs move in diagonal pairs. The canter is a gait with three beats. It averages 8 mph and has a moment of suspension. A western canter is called a lope. The gallop has four beats, averages 15 mph and has a moment of suspension. Is it pushing off the ground quickly enough? In dressage, we talk a lot about bending the horse to the inside through corners and other figures by pushing him from your inside leg to your outside rein.
This can backfire if your horse tends to swing his haunches to the outside in one direction and you fail to control that with your outside leg. To counteract this habit effectively, you need to evaluate his strengths and weaknesses and be conscious of them through every turn and figure.
To correct this, use more left leg to keep his haunches tracking properly behind his shoulders in both directions. For the previous example—the horse with a weak left hind leg—practice lots of shoulder-in to the left and haunches-in to the right, both in trot and canter.
This will help to keep that left hind under his body at all times. Be careful, however, when doing lateral work. This creates the exact problem that leads to rhythm faults like a four-beat canter!
One canter exercise I like to do frequently is transitioning from shoulder-in or shoulder-fore immediately into haunches-in, then back to shoulder-in or shoulder-fore, and then back to haunches-in.
Terms like rhythm, tempo, regularity, cadence and suspension come up frequently in dressage tests. Dressage Federation defines them:. Rhythm: The recurring characteristic sequence and timing of footfalls and phases of a gait. For purposes of dressage, the only correct rhythms are those of the pure walk, trot, canter, rein back and piaffe. Tempo: The rate of repetition of the strides as may be measured by a metronome. Tempo is measured by counting the number of times per minute that one of the hooves touches down indicating completion of one full stride.
Alternatively, at walk and trot, both emphasized beats of the stride may be counted. Regularity: The purity of the gait. At walk and trot, denotes symmetry in terms of evenness of the length of the steps, levelness of the height of the steps, and equality of the time interval between the steps of the left and right forelimbs or the left and right hind limbs.
Cadence: The marked accentuation of the rhythm and emphasized beat that is a result of a steady and suitable tempo harmonizing with a springy impulsion. Suspension: The moment or phase of the trot, canter or passage in which the horse has no feet on the ground.
Allison Ali Brock grew up in Hawaii, where she was very active in Pony Club, jumped, rode dressage, exercised polo ponies and rode Western. After high school, she moved to the mainland to work with several well-known dressage trainers, including Olympian Sue Blinks. While bringing along her next stars, she continues to be an active clinician and official ambassador for Brooke USA, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the welfare of working horses, mules and donkeys around the world.
Common Problems. Jumping Clinic with Beezie Madden. It is a distinctive natural gait of the Tennessee walking horse. The rack is a natural ambling four-beat gait single foot or rack with no evidence of pacing. When the horse moves you can count four distinct hoof beats which produce a cadence of equal rhythm, just like a walk: left hind, left fore, right hind, right fore.
Horses that have natural gaits are:. Our Hidden Trails trips in Spain, Ecuador and Portugal have Andalusian and Lusitano horses which technically are not special gaited horses but they have great balance, and are have a very comfortable gait. Hidden Trails Ph. Click here to print brochure. Sign up for newsletter. In its pure form, the footfalls are the speed of an even lateral single-foot gait is increased to be approximately that of the trot of pace, but instead of being a two-beat gait, it is a four-beat gait with equal intervals between each beat but the gait in the Icelandic horse has a different style with more freedom and liquidity of movement.
The most prized horses have a very long stride and considerable lift with their forelegs. Home - Blog - Horse Gaits. Riding Fears. Happy Holidays. Grizzly Bear Viewing. Striking Landscapes.
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