When the going gets rough... go gaited!
f o r g a i t e d h o r s e e n t h u s i a s t s
Photo of Ivory Pal by Cheri Prill Tennessee Walking Horse Issue August 2010
Like this article? Send it to a friend!
Have a question or comment? What is your next breed? Have a photo to send in? Email me at editor@goinggaited.com
- Gaited Horse Sense (GHS Messageboard)
- Gaited Breed Assoc. Directory
- For back issues of the magazine by month
Does anyone remember the days as a youth when someone was telling you how to do something and you could have cared less? I had a few of those days, but fortunately for me people were patient and persistent teachers about horse breeding basics. These people had horses whose consistency of gait and conformation were like using a cookie cutter. My following comments are based on their breeding concepts and use in our breeding program.
Going Gaited On Line Equestrian Magazine
by Leonard Smith on 05/05/12
Yes, you can.... read this wonderful article!
by Leonard Smith on 04/29/12
For all of us using round hay bales, the question has always been which is the best feeder. Read this great article from the University of Minnesota.
by Leonard Smith on 04/28/12
Pasture Management is an issue we all deal with...
by Leonard Smith on 04/28/12
A Shetland pony with startlingly short legs has cost the taxpayer thousands of pounds, because passers-by think she is sinking in mud and keep ringing the emergency services.
SOME OTHER BREED
SPOTLIGHT ARTICLES
January 2012 Gary Seibert, Jellico Farms Gaited Morgans
The chart displays the percentage/odds of getting different levels of gaiting ability based on two gaited parents. The five percent in the chart’s right column of producing better gait than either parent was the goal of their breeding programs. The breeding technique used by these farms also increased the odds of getting intermediate even four beat gaited horses.
How did these breeders improve their odds of getting those top five percent? The following was their simple technique. They sought to combine those horses which broke to the trot or pace after reaching their fastest speed in their normal gaits. Key was keeping horses from going from their fastest gait speed to the canter, but instead verify whether the trot or pace was their default gait to go faster. If you had a horse breaking to the pace then this horse would be bred to a horse which broke to the trot.
The breeders who just bred gaited horses and did not know the default gaits might end up with two other possibilities. These breeders might be breeding two horses which both broke to the pace. The offspring of these horses had a tendency to do the stepping pace or pace. If the horses combined were trotters, then you were likely to get a trotting horse or one which might be weak gaited and had a gaiting tendency. If the goal was to have an offspring with the five percent chance of being better than either parent and did an intermediate four beat gait, then the objective would be to breed the pace to trot horse.
Even though several decades have elapsed since these breeders used this simplistic process. There are still no proven scientific studies showing whether gait is produced by a gene or genes, conformation and genes or copied actions from other horses or maybe taught by humans. There are many others who have very involved concepts of projecting the likelihood of various gaits and their strengths. What you believe or why under these circumstances means you will have to draw your own conclusion.
The photos intermingled in this article are of foals around three days old which were bred on our farm using the trot/pace concept. They are from three different stallions and three different mares. The goal was to breed foals which would do the saddle rack (some call it the saddle gait), running walk or rack and showed Morgan temperament and conformation. All got up gaiting and have only got stronger with age/maturity,
