Show us your gaited horses !

My first horse was gaited, my best horse was gaited and our Harley is gaited.    I have found that the gaited horses I have been privileged to be around are steady and kind.  Topper seems inclined to be gaited, too although his breed doesn't like it.  I am including a picture of Harley, showing his basic attitude towards life.  He is one of the happiest horse I have ever known.

Connie he's so handsome ! He acts like he knows he's a knockout too. I love a confident horse that has a fun loving spirit.
What breed is Topper ? I think that breed associations should allow for a horses's natural tendencies instead of placing restrictive criteria on them. I always joked that my perfect horse would be smooth gaited, built like a QH, have the stamina and spirit of an Arabian,and the speed and heart of a Thoroughbred. What a package that would be ! 

[quote=KyAngel]

Connie he's so handsome ! He acts like he knows he's a knockout too. I love a confident horse that has a fun loving spirit.
What breed is Topper ? I think that breed associations should allow for a horses's natural tendencies instead of placing restrictive criteria on them. I always joked that my perfect horse would be smooth gaited, built like a QH, have the stamina and spirit of an Arabian,and the speed and heart of a Thoroughbred. What a package that would be ! 


You would have loved my friend's Quarter Horse (from racing lines). She would do a running walk just like a TWH.

That definitely would've been a fantastic horse for me !  I've always had a weakness for QH's but I love the intermediate gaits too much to give up my beloved gaited horses. I've heard that certain bloodlines in the QH's have a tendancy to gait. Do you know what bloodlines that horse was from ?

Topper is a registered Paint...from the Dakotas.  He does have a quarter horse body, western paint as opposed to the TB type.  He is mellow, has a lot of drive in the rear, and a very soft mouth.  I posted a picture of him on general chat the other day, but will add it here to make it easier to find.

Baron was a bay gaited I had almost 20 years ago. (has it really been that long?)  He came up from the Carolinas on a load of horses someone sent to my dealer.  He was a little barn sour, but so wonderfully smooth gaited that after riding him for over an hour I knew his barn sourness was of a workable kind.  He would go anywhere, trusted me, was unafraid of whatever we came across, could gait along with cantering quarter horses, he was just a super horse.  Sadly, I boarded him out and they fed him bad feed and he died a slow, painful death.  I have been looking for one just like him since then.  I doubt that Topper will ever be able to gait at those speeds, but if he can just keep up with Harley, he will do.  Harley is joyful, but calm and quiet under saddle.

Have a super day.  Love the name of your location.

I balk at calling Zag a gaited horse.  He's a Standardbred and is a pacer, which is a 2 beat lateral gait.  Might be wrong but that's how it appears to me.  I can get him into a really comfortable saddle gait but I got him with fox hunting in mind.  However I have neglected doing the work necessary to get him to trot every time I want him to.  He's not safe jumping as a pacer unless I can get him comfortable with the trot.  He trots a LOT in the pasture and some under saddle.  He's a very smart, playful boy.  I love him in spite of our differences.  I think he's taught me something in all that.

[quote=Connie]

Topper is a registered Paint...from the Dakotas.  He does have a quarter horse body, western paint as opposed to the TB type.  He is mellow, has a lot of drive in the rear, and a very soft mouth.  I posted a picture of him on general chat the other day, but will add it here to make it easier to find. 

Baron was a bay gaited I had almost 20 years ago. (has it really been that long?)  He came up from the Carolinas on a load of horses someone sent to my dealer.  He was a little barn sour, but so wonderfully smooth gaited that after riding him for over an hour I knew his barn sourness was of a workable kind.  He would go anywhere, trusted me, was unafraid of whatever we came across, could gait along with cantering quarter horses, he was just a super horse.  Sadly, I boarded him out and they fed him bad feed and he died a slow, painful death.  I have been looking for one just like him since then.  I doubt that Topper will ever be able to gait at those speeds, but if he can just keep up with Harley, he will do.  Harley is joyful, but calm and quiet under saddle.

Have a super day.  Love the name of your location.


 Connie, Topper is a handsome boy ! I love his body type since I have a real weakness for a stocky built horse. When a horse has a lot of drive from the rear they tend to be really smooth. He'll  probally be able to travel quite a distance without overtiring himself and will gradually become capable of faster speeds. How old is he ?  My 7 year old stallion has been clocked at speeds in excess of 25 mph going uphill with me and I weigh in at 220. The gait he does is a rack , which he does in speed racking and style racking classes as well as trail pleasure classes too.  I love the speed but I also love the elegance of a nice floaty runwalk.
 
Hunterseat, Your boy is cute too !  A lot of people around here buy standardbred horses to cross with their gaited mares. The resulting offspring (if gaited at all )tend to be really fast gaited horses and are usually really good in speed racking classes and gaited trail racing as well. If you want to discourage pacing you can work him on loose soil such as a freshly plowed and disked field or in tall grass. This will discourage and break up the lateral movement of the pace. Also working him up steep hills will discourage pacing just remember to not to ask for speed down the hill as this encourages the pace.A few year ago  when I was training a 3 year old mare that was really pacey I worked her over poles set about 18 inches apart to break up the lateral movement of the pace in addition to working her in really tall grass. That mare finally quit pacing and became a pretty smooth mare. Just be sure that if you do still want him to trot then continue the pole work and he'll develope a strong trot instead of his smooth saddle gait. A person can take a smooth gaited horse and make it trotty by working it over poles daily until it gets the foot fall pattern right. My poor goofy stepson Levi learned about pole trailing the hard way. I had been training horses for a friend of mine and he kept insisting that he could train a horse if I'd let him do it. I didn't want to just turn him loose without consulting the horse's owner so I got permission from him to let my stepson have a go at it. Levi was 18 and of couse he knew ABSOLUTELY everything there was to know about training horses. LOL! He started working a pretty 3 year old filly with a real sweet temperment .....and the&nbspaciest thing. that ever was. He worked slowly and steadily for a while and when he realized that I was'nt breathing down his nech to boss him started his OWN program. After almost a month he came to me asking for help. It seems that little filly had quit pacing but was now so trotty her legs were like jackhammers. He was ready to give up saying she was hopeless. I finally got the whole story out of him between insults aimed at the poor horse. He had been working her over poles for an hour a day ,every day for almost a month. He had stopped her pacing and taught her to trot. LOL! We had to start all over to break the trotting habit that he had taught her. LOL! At least he waited a while before claiming to know it all at least a week or so anyways.    

[quote=KyAngel]

That definitely would've been a fantastic horse for me !  I've always had a weakness for QH's but I love the intermediate gaits too much to give up my beloved gaited horses. I've heard that certain bloodlines in the QH's have a tendancy to gait. Do you know what bloodlines that horse was from ?


No. The only thing I remember her saying was King (there were others). I can't ask her because she passed away last year from ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease).

I'll have to check into it. I'm sorry to hear about your friend passing away. It's hard to lose a good friend. I'm going to do some research into the gaited QH lines. It's always been a dream of mine to locate and buy a gaited QH.
 
A good friend of mine that's in the saddle club with me had a big sorrel that looked like a QH (but it wasn't) it could gait all day as smooth as glass but could jump as gracefully as a Thoroughbred. He would jump the 3-1/2 foot high gates and the trail entrance gate like it was nothing at all while the rest of us went around it. No way was I going to risk breaking my horses's legs jumping a metal gate ! What I loved about that horse was his big, chunky build that was almost exactly like a foundation bred QH. What a horse !  *drooling *

OK. I'm going to try to put a picture on here. My old computer crashed last year. The hard drive was failing (heck, it was only12 years old) so I had the local computer guru put all my 'stuff' on disk. So...I just got the picture over onto this computer and had to cut it down. Let's see if it works...

So I'm the fat lady on the black horse. That's the QH that would do a running walk. The other lady is my friend who died on her Arabian mare. Both of the horses were hers. Both of the horses are also deceased. The picture was taken at a local parade in 2004.

WOW ! He was a pretty critter ! You aint fat ! I wish that I looked that slim on a horse.

The horse was a mare. She produced some really nice foals for my friend. None of them had the running walk.

Ooops ! I thought it was a gelding. It's strange but even in really well bred gaited horses of well established breeds (for example TWH) there are offspring that can't gait. It skips generations or whatever.To me  it's really neat when it crops up in non-gaited breeds. Although I can imagine the breeders of them aren't as pleased. Just through the DNA testing of the horses the KNGHA are registering the University Of Kentucky have discovered 4 more DNA makers that produce the ability to gait.  To me it's facinating ! 

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