>Gaited horses - especially the walking horses and five gaited horses -
can walk out. If they don't they won't gait. The orverstird seems to come with
the package and as they get stronger the walk gets faster and more powerful with
more over stride.
Have found this true with the "gaited" Arabs as
well.
>The old time walking horse trainers - when they used to
spend time on them instead of trying to get the two minute maricle for the show
ring - used to have a rider take the horse out day after day and just walk and
walk and walk. They would say once they can walk everything else falls into
place.
One of my cornerstone bits of advice has always
been that the walk is the most ignored gait in endurance horses as well, and if
one spends time developing the walk early on, everything else benefits as
well.
>When I was riding the mare (TWH) she had a walk that
would require others to trot to keep up. I measured it one time - 6 miles in one
hour. This is the plan old easy flat footed walk - no running walk, no
gait. The one thing about it is the thrust that comes from the hind end on every
stride. You can really feel if you're not loose in the hips it can get to
you.
Yep on all counts. The stallion I previously
mentioned likewise would walk at about 5.5 mph pretty consistently. The
final 12 miles of the Santiam 100 that I mentioned was done with an average well
over 5 mph--and I've sat at enough finish lines in the night to be able to tell
you that the average speed of a walking endurance horse at night is between 2
and 3 mph. Definitely an area where many horses could use some
work....
>With non gaited horses that will gait and have
a big walk, I suspect if you looked hard you'd find there are two components.
One is clearly wiring that gives them the tendency to gait and also conformation
that gives them the big walk.
