As I said, I could be wrong! But I just hope his tolt doesnt suffer. I know some disagree but in my own personal experience I have found the spectrum of gaits rarely goes from one extreme to the other in one horse. I believe A horse on the pacey side is gonna tolt well and a horse on the trotty side is gonna running walk well. But my Stonewall even proves that wrong, always trotting in the field but saddleracking under saddle.
But my Jaspar, hardwired for pace, conformation for pace, I doubt he has ever trotted in his life. I doubt I could even make him trot. I have suspected a trot once or twice but that was after years of NH methods to try and cure his pace the Lee Zeigler way. I finally got a flatwalk and then a RW out of him and around that time he trotted a few times, i think! so I think things were changing. Then he got his backbone fistula again and had a long layoff, then out of shape, it all went away. Now we are getting it back I think... But now I can tell when he is gonna have a "pacey" day, because his dogwalk swings me subtley side to side, and sure enough, when he moves out he goes into stepping pace, not flatwalk. On those days its very hard for me to get anything out of him but steppingpace... to get a non ventoflexed gait out of him I have to go back to cavalettis and hill work and making him bend sideways while going forward... and then when he gets back in shape the flatwalk comes. I want him to flatwalk because altho his stepping pace is wonderful, if he goes too fast it turns into a bone jarring hard pace--- not good for his frame. Its so hard to get a horse to gait smooth! I guess thats why I would not mess with one... but your Starnji is hopefully getting to be a well rounded guy gaitwise. Janice yipie tie yie yo
