We stumbled upon a Paso Fino this year
for my daughter that is part arab. Maybe 1/2, maybe 1/4 but dad was pure
Paso Fino. He gaits well and shows no physical signs of having arab in him
EXCEPT he has really nice low heart rates and recoveries! I joke her that his
HRs are from his "arab" side. ;-)
Ed, do you ever cross your Pasos with arabs? Seems like a good combo. A
little on the hot side but our Paso cross is not too hot. But we have
yet to wear him out!
as someone who breeds gaited horses(paso finos) and having done some
crossbreeding to trotting horses, i can tell you, it is a roll of the dice as
to whether you will get gait or not. the odds are probably a bit more in
favor of not getting the gait.
as for not being able to tell if you have a gaited horse or not until you
have it started under saddle, if the horse doesnt gait at liberty,
then it is not likely to do it under saddle. i have two new paso fino colts,
born last month. as soon as they are dried off and start moving, they do
the four beat gait.
i recently trained a paint horse for a friend of mine. she was
watching me ride one of my paso finos and asked if i could teach her paint
horse how to do that. i told her, sorry, it is in the hard wiring.
if i could teach it to a horse, i would have a corner on the
market. ed