Most important 'natural' pace?

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ecrozier

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Just pondering really after a comment my dressage instructor made about my youngster's walk....
Which would you say is the pace that can be least improved by schooling? So is the most important to have a good 'natural' rhythm/length of stride etc? I had never really thought about it before as he is the first horse I have had from the beginning, rest had all been 'meddled with' in one way or another!
So would you be looking for a really nice natural walk/trot/canter or all?! Or not bothered as schoolng will improve all three if done correctly?
 
With regards to importance then IMO, it's the walk - from a good walk you get a good canter, and hence jump, and a walk that you can actually use will lead to the piaffe.

I actually think that there are far more horses with a naturally good walk than is realised, but it's an area people spend so little time on.

I would imagine most SJers aren't too bothered by a poor trot, so long as the canter is there.
 
Interesting Megan thanks - totally agree about SJers probably not really minding a poor trot and also about people not really spending much time in walk....

Building from OP, what do you look for in a walk? I guess natural rhythm and tracking up if not overtracking are a good start? My arab has a slightly funny walk, if left on a lung rein he actually doesn't quite track up. However when 'connected' and working properly he tracks up perfectly. Had physio/chiro regularly and nothing wrong, he's also trotted up sound at endurance and 3 Day events, just has a slightly duff natural walk!
 
Canter for me. A great walk is fab for lower level dressage but can be hard to collect & a trot can be manufactured over time, but an uphill cadenced canter is hard to generate if it's not there naturally.
 
So when looking for a good canter in a young unbacked horse Chris I guess looking for natural balance? And an uphill build? Although that can change I guess if the horse is still growing!
 
Walk probably.
My youngster had a fabulous floaty trot, and naturally balanced canter, and a fab pop on him but I've struggled to improve his walk undersaddle. Just hasn't got the length of stride.

I guess it depends what discipline you are aiming at... walk wouldn't be an issue for a showjumper, but for showing or dressage its hard work to improve it.
 
Agree in the canter. It has to be naturally balanced with a ground covering stride, and preferably a good active hind leg action so that it is uphill. It makes life a lot easier!! My coloured had a fab trot and a weak canter, and it made life quite difficult!! A bad trot is the easiest pace to improve....

The walk is important, but only from a showing/serious dressage point of view. They always said Bonfire had a weak walk... it didn't hold him back much ;)
 
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KatB said:
Agree in the canter. It has to be naturally balanced with a ground covering stride, and preferably a good active hind leg action so that it is uphill. It makes life a lot easier!! My coloured had a fab trot and a weak canter, and it made life quite difficult!! A bad trot is the easiest pace to improve....

The walk is important, but only from a showing/serious dressage point of view. They always said Bonfire had a weak walk... it didn't hold him back much ;)
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Agree with KatB, I think the canter is important. Like your coloured, Lace's weakest pace is the canter so life can be very difficult!
 
Interesting everyone agrees that trot is probably least important!
Grey Badger do you mean that its all down to conformation what a horse's paces are like?
Its interesting. My instructor does NOT hand out praise lightly (but has been wonderful for my older boy, she has got me and him from struggling to gain 55% prelim to considering doing our first elementary tests and rarely out of ribbons Novice) but she gave me first lesson on young'un the other day (he's rising 4 and backed and hacking so far) and the first thing she said was what a fantastic walk he has, overtracks and really covers the ground but has a naturally relaxed rhythm (I didn't buy him to do dressage particularly). She also liked his trot but I was interested by how much fuss she made of a good walk!
Presumably tho his conformation helps - he is naturally long legged and fairly short backed so is going to step through more easily than something with short back/long legs?!
 
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I'd say walk, if that's good then you usually you get at least one of the other 2 gaits right, I'd rather a horse with 2 good natural gaits, I've found in my own experiance, normally horses with sticky walk, usually don't have a either a nice canter or alternatively a horrid trot.
 
Not talking competing wise but a good walk is critical for me. Think how many horses don't compete but hack or do fittening work. It's half the battle if you have a good walk as that is the pace you use most on roadwork and it's much more comfortable if it's a good swinging walk, not a dawdle; also don't forget the saying if it can walk, it can gallop.
 
I think canter is the most important, a "big" trot can be produced (i've seen my trainer do it with one of his stallions) but the work required on higher level dressage tests will be hard to do with a horse with a weak canter. Also for jumping, canter will obviously be the most important. For me a great canter is naturally balanced, uphill, and easy to collect and extend, whether for dressage or jumping.

For me the walk is a difficult one because in an ideal world we'd all have horses with a huge over track in the walk, but many horses with a big walk really struggle when they are asked to collect it and move up the levels. Many big walks end up pacey the more that they are fiddled with, and many top dressage horses do not have great walks. They probably had great walks when they were younger but as the walk gets more and more collected and the horse works in a more advanced outline they struggle to keep the fantastic walk they started with. A clear 4 beat walk is the most important thing to look for at walk imo, an over track is a bonus!
 
Previously I would have said the canter - my old pony had a wonderful, balanced canter which made everything easy. But now, I would agree it's the walk. The current horse has a phenomenal walk, huge overtrack and lovely rhythm. His trot is fabulous and floating although because he's so elevated it can be hard to contain, and his canter used to be absolutely terrible - such a disappointment after 2 such lovely paces.

However, having done extensive trot work and strengthening him up in the trot, he became easier in the canter and is now beginning to establish what I would call a 'proper' canter - we did our first correct, balanced flying change the other day!! (he usually throws them in at random and is running on and unbalanced, but this time he was balanced, uphill and, most importanlty, did it on request!!). So what I am saying is, certainly in his case, there is no way I could train that walk into him, it's just natural, but I've been able to train and hone the trot and canter to become established, quite flashy paces - still work to do but in my opinion (granted, mostly based on this one horse!!) you can build a lovely trot and canter but the walk needs to have something special to start with!
 
ecrozier said:
Grey Badger do you mean that its all down to conformation what a horse's paces are like?
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No no, that's not what I meant. You can clearly improve some paces with schooling designed to improve the pace (i.e. to improve trot / canter). The only thing you can do to improve a walk is make it more relaxed - attempting to school (or fuss and fiddle...) with the walk really only gets you a shortened, pacing gait. However, as was said further up in the thread, you're going to have to do a lot of work to get a proper connected, uphill canter from a horse that is build really croup high, and even then it might not ever be as good as that from a horse with a natural uphill frame. That is what I meant about taking it int the context of the conformation.

Of course, generics are pretty useless, as all horses (and their schooling) are different at the end of the day...
 
canter, and walk imo are important paces.

My horse has a 4 hoof overtrack naturally at walk, but dosent carry that through in trot and canter - so you need to look at a horse in all paces to make sure that they are consistent.

Walk is the hardest to improve :)
 
canter for me.

in eventing 95% of your work will be done from canter so it makes life 1000% times easier if you have a good base in place.

the walk may be hardest to improve but i would always rather be sat on a horse with a great canter and rubbish walk rather than the other way around if i am looking to go eventing.

of course, ideally you want a good walk as well but most important out of the 3 is the canter.

what to look for in a young horse- natural balance, good tempo and uphill with a hock that comes well underneath the horse.
the easiest way for me to think of it is in terms of gears- you want a horse with a natural range of gears within his paces and ability to shift between those gears easily without falling onto the forehand too much.

my 6yro has had to do a lot of work to get a canter that you can adjust, my 4yro was born with a canter with about 15 different gears so he should find it all much easier.
 
I would have said the canter previously but since I bought my black horse, I'm going to say the walk. The reason being that he has a proper big 'chaser' walk and it translates to all the other paces. If they step through well with the hind legs at the walk, chances are that they will do it at the trot and the canter, since the natural paces of a horse mostly come from having a good hind leg action. That's just my (recent) experience!
 
millitiger said:
canter for me.

in eventing 95% of your work will be done from canter so it makes life 1000% times easier if you have a good base in place.

the walk may be hardest to improve but i would always rather be sat on a horse with a great canter and rubbish walk rather than the other way around if i am looking to go eventing.

of course, ideally you want a good walk as well but most important out of the 3 is the canter.

what to look for in a young horse- natural balance, good tempo and uphill with a hock that comes well underneath the horse.
the easiest way for me to think of it is in terms of gears- you want a horse with a natural range of gears within his paces and ability to shift between those gears easily without falling onto the forehand too much.

my 6yro has had to do a lot of work to get a canter that you can adjust, my 4yro was born with a canter with about 15 different gears so he should find it all much easier.
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In terms of eventing, i would completely agree with this :)
 
Really interesting thread thanks guys! Greybadger I get what you mean now sorry, totally true that even with really hard work its almost impossible to overcome conformation that works against you I guess....if you have something really long in the back its never going to overtack and move as freely as a shorter backed horse I guess!

Never really bought a horse for its paces/potenial before, horses have always found me tbh, even current 4 year old was supposed to be for OH so bought entirely on temprament and size etc (and price) but he has a 4 hoof overtrack at walk too and actually seems so far to carry that through to trot, and friend rode him and asked him for canter the other day and he offered an almost circular 20m circle at first go (i've just asked for transition up and a few strides so far in school as he's big and school is small!!) so now that I seem to have found myself with a horse with nice paces I'm quite fascinated by the whole thing! I'm used to arab paces which are obviously different from the sports horse paces....he's all flicky toes and air time. And has an excellent XC canter (easily makes intro speed and is only 14.2hh) and is nice and balanced for SJ... but not massively scopey.

Very interesting anyway to hear what other people think!
 
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