Gaits can be roughly categorized into the ordinary gaits that probably every horse will do without special training, and several other gaits that may appear spontaneously in some individuals but which usually require special training and/or special breeding to enable the rider to obtain them by communicating with the horse.
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2 Additional Gaits 3 Continued information on gaits |
Some people count these as three gaits, combining the canter and the gallop, considering the gallop a variation of the canter. Others count them as four gaits, separating the canter and the gallop.
In increasing order of speed, the ordinary gaits are: walk, trot, canter, and gallop. Only two gaits are natural to wild horses: the walk and the gallop. The trot and the canter have been developed in horses through domestication, breeding, and training.
In this gait, the horse moves one foot at a time while the other three feet stay in contact with the ground. If, for instance, the left hind leg moves forward, it will be followed by the left front leg, next the right hind leg, then the right front leg, and back to the left hind leg. As humans move their arms to balance when walking and running, so too, the horse must move its head and neck to maintain its balance.
Ideally, the advancing rear hoof touches the ground ahead of the place at which the previously advancing front hoof touched the ground. This makes for a smoother and more comfortable (for the rider) walk. Different horse breeds (as well as different individual horses) differ in how smooth their walk is.
In this gait, the horse moves its legs in unison in diagonal pairs. From the standpoint of the balance of the horse, this is a very stable gait, and the horse need not make major balancing motions with its head and neck.
In the canter, one of the horse's rear legs, let us say the right rear leg, impels the horse forward. During this beat, the horse is supported only on that single leg while the remaining three legs are moving forward. On the next beat the horse catches itself on the left rear and right front legs while the other hind leg is still momentarily in contact with the ground. On the third beat the horse catches itself on the left front leg while the diagonal pair is momentarily still in contact with the ground. Listening to a horse canter, one can in most cases hear the three stages of this movement as though a drum had been struck three times in succession. Then there is a rest, and immediately afterwards the three-beat occurs again. Individual horses may tend to prefer to lead with either the left or right hind foot. However, in dressage, horses can be made to "switch gears" on cue.
In the gallop, the gait is like the canter and feels the same, except the three-beat canter changes to a four-beat movement and there is a moment of suspension where all four legs of the horse leave the ground. The four feet hit the ground individually, the hind feet before the front feet. When the legs are stretched out, at least one foot is in contact with the ground. Sometimes, the canter and gallop are considered to be a single gait; sometimes they are considered to be separate gaits.
When all four feet are off the ground, the legs are bent, not extended (in contrast with old "classic" paintings of running horses). In 1892, Leland Stanford settled an argument about whether galloping horses were ever fully airborne using the first documented example of high-speed time-lapse photography by paying photgrapher Eadweard Muybridge to devise an apparatus with multiple trip wires attached to camera shutters. The photos clearly showed the horse airborne.
As in the trot, two feet are always off the ground. In the trot, two diagonally opposite legs move together; in the pace, the two legs on the same side of the horse move together. The trot is more common, but some breeds of horses prefer to pace. Horses can be raced at a trot or pace, usually when pulling a sulkey.
This gate follows the same general sequence of movement as the walk, but the rhythm and collection of the movements are different. The slow gait was developed from the pace, a gait that can currently be seen in harness racing. In the pace, both legs on the left side move together and then both legs on the right side move together. The speed of the two-beat pace is even faster than the trot. If the length of the stride is kept long, but there is a slight gap between the foots-falls, the result is a gait that will be intermediate in speed between the walk and the pace, but very smooth.
In the rack, the speed is increased to be approximately that of the pace, but instead of being a two-beat gait like the trot and the pace, it is a four-beat gait with equal intervals between each beat. The fast trot is difficult to sit because between beats the body of the horse actually falls (just as for humans running is a coordinated rapid process of falling forth and catching oneself). Each time another diagonal pair of legs hits the ground, the rider is given a strong upward impulsion and meets the horse with some force on the way back down. But in the rack the impulsive "explosions" are each divided in half because the hooves hit the ground individually rather in pairs.
A horse "dances" when it moves in a defined series of movements in a defined pattern, usually when under a rider. The art of making horses dance is called dressage.
At the full canter (or full gallop) and at the extremely collected canter, the impacts of the two diagonally related legs are sufficiently separated in time to be differentiated. At this time one will hear a four-beat canter.
When turning, the horse will naturally lean into the turn. It is at this time that it makes a great deal of difference to the horse which front leg is moving together which the diagonally opposed rear leg, and which front leg is moving independently. If the horse were turning to the left, for instance, its left side would be lower to the ground because it is leaning into the left turn. It is advantageous to the horse, then, to be able to extend the left leg farther to the front. In fact, the horse cannot lean if the leg on that side is directly under its body. So the only possible thing to do with that leg is to move it farther forward than it would need to be if the horse were going straight. To put the situation in somewhat more familiar terms, imagine a racing bicycle rider trying to take a tight turn at high speed while riding a bicycle with a child's training wheels. The training wheel on the inside of the turn would prevent the rider from leaning into the turn, and a crash would probably result as weight came off his main rear wheel and went onto the training wheel.
If the horse moves forward with the left front hoof moving independently and the right front and left rear hooves moving together, the horse is said to be taking the left lead. If the right hoof goes out in front the horse is on the right lead. According to the mechanics just discussed, it is easiest for the horse to take a left turn on the left lead.
If a horse is deliberately instructed to take a left turn on the right lead, or vice-versa, this is called a "counter canter" ("counter gallop"). Moderate use of this gait by an informed rider may be useful in the athletic training of the horse, but the horse that is still not sufficently athletically developed to handle the difficult balancing act involved may try to compensate in ways that will be detrimental to its well being and to its training.
There are several specialized breeds of horses with special genetic inheritance of which facilitates the spontaneous or trained appearance of other gaits such as the pace (in which the legs move in lateral pairs rather than diagonal pairs), the slow gait, the rack, etc. The American Saddlebred has been selectively bred to easily learn the walk, trot, gallop, slow gait, and rack. The Peruvian Paso and Paso Fino are two breeds which have a smooth, innate gait known as the running walk. Another breed famous for its distinctive mode of locomotion is the Tennessee Walking Horse.The Ordinary gaits
Walk
Trot
Canter
Gallop
Additional Gaits
The Pace
The Slow Gait
The Rack
Continued information on gaits