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Some horses I am extremely comfortable in a trot. On some I much prefer 
the canter. Some such a piddly walk, I rather get off and walk myself. I 
think a lot of it has to do with the horse's "resonance" matching the 
rider's "resonance." I think this is especially true at the trot.

My old walking horse mare actually had a nice trot. It was long and low 
with very little upward force. I found it extremely comfortable and easy 
to ride. A friend of mind who had been riding for 30 years could not get 
into sync with the mare's trot at all (probably because she was used to 
more upward force in the trot). She struggled to ride the her trot. She 
had no problems with the canter but the trot was a different story.

Truman

k s swigart wrote:
> I find this statement to extremely odd.  As a riding instructor, I can
> unequivocably tell you that few if any riders feel safer riding at the
> trot than any of the other gaits.  They feel safest at the walk (a four
> beat gait), and the only thing they find unsafe about the canter (a
> three beat gait) is the speed, not the rhythm.
>
> Consequently, I have found that riders feel safest on horses that don't
> trot at all (i.e. gaited horses).  While trotting horses (or pacers,
> which most riders find even more disquieting) have a two-beat gait that
> is neurologically the same as our own, it is, in fact, the two beat
> gaits that riders have the most trouble maintaining a rhythm that
> matches the horse's.
>
> It is the bounciness of the trot that makes riders feel insecure.  It
> might be a two beat bounce with a bunch of vertical forces.  In the walk
> there is no bounce and in the canter the forces are more front to back
> rather than up and down.
>
> Is there ANYBODY out there who, when learning to ride, thought "yep, the
> trot is the easiest for me to get in rhythm with?"  I have taught a lot
> of people to ride, and not a one of them has ever said that.
>
> kat
> Orange County, Calif.
> :)
>   


--

“It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how 
smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong” Richard 
Feynman, Nobel Laureate in Physics


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