RE: RC: Re: Breeds

["Tamara Putman" <nis75p06@mindspring.com>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Jana Crewett [mailto:jfcr@ceh.ac.uk]
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2000 5:34 AM
To: Ridecamp@endurance.net
Subject: RC: RC: Re: Breeds
<SNIP>
Another thing I noticed on the rides over here: lots of Arabs seem to
have the basic ability to gait (in addition to trot)
<SNIP>
Is there anyone else who rides endurance on a horse that both trots
and gaits - if there is, do you have any specific strategies what gait
to choose when

I have a gaited Arab (lots of Egyptian, and plenty of Davenport way back).
I call the gait a single-foot, but then I don't know much about gaited
horses.

I actually worked for the longest time to get rid of the gait because it
wasn't as fast as a trot and Falcomaar would rather gait than walk.  Finally
gave up training it out of him and now just live with it.  He trots when he
wants to, gaits when he wants to, basically which ever he feels like as long
as it is at MY speed.

Alone, he gaits more than walking or trotting.  With other horses he usually
gaits when they walk and then trots when they do to keep up.  He is
small-ish, has shorter legs, so the gaiting lets him keep up better when
others are at a fast walk/slow trot.  I've owned him from a weanling, he's
never lived with gaited horses, so I'm guessing this tendency is a Davenport
holdover as I read somewhere that the early Davenports where shown in some 5
gaited classes.

Seems to me that gaiting uses a different muscle set, because when he gets
tired of trotting, he gaits and vice versa.

-Tamara
(The little darling is for sale, by the way!)
“Fiddle, n. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail
on the entrails of a cat.”
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