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> We find that our horses who work almost entirely on sand, and deep sand
> at that, prefer the canter or the walk as gaits in the desert. Trot is
> ok if we can find a packed surface like one of the roads created by the
> illegal sand miners and/or antiquities miners.
Contrary to the impression given by the modern USA Arabian show ring, the
canter IS the primary distance gait of the Arabian originally, and the
trot is not fast or high.  To quote Albert Harris (written in 1944, prior
to the move by American breeders to alter the breed to follow the show
ring fads):

"[He] can take his rider over any kind of country and go on indefinitely. 
His endurance is proverbial.  He is an easy horse to sit on.  His gaits
are so smooth and elastic one does not grow fatigued.  This, no doubt, is
accounted for by the fact that he does not lift his feet high or pound the
ground.  He is a good walking horse and has a nice trot, at which he
merely lifts his feet high enough to clear the ground, and his canter, or
gallop, is low, but smooth and graceful.  As to his speed, again using
average figures--as all horses are not alike--his fastest gait is, of
course, the extended gallop.  At this he is swift, sure-footed, and
tireless.  Extended, many Arabs can go a mile in under two minutes.  His
trot is smooth and easy to sit, as are all his gaits, but he is not a fast
trotting horse, nor a high stepper.  Some can move along at from ten to
twelve miles an hour, but the average rate of speed of the Arab at the
trot will be from seven to ten miles.  His walk is very good.  Four and
one-half miles per hour is not unusual, and five this writer has often
made."

This sure doesn't sound like a desert horse that trotted everywhere--a
good, groundcovering, efficient trot, yes, but clearly a horse that
cantered quite a bit when asked to move out, too.  The observation that
sand may be more readily traversed at a canter is apparently something the
Bedouins also knew, and they bred their horses accordingly.

Heidi



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