--- In [email protected], "Wanda Lauscher" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Specialized training? Cara and I aren't doing any specialized > training. I think people forget these are horses first, and gaited > horses second.
There are people out there who will tell you that you do need special training for an Icelandic. I really didn't know what to think at first. I had no experience with gaited horses. There are some tricks to riding gait, to keep it even and clean in whatever gait you are trying to do. The only time I think you need really special training is when you are trying to turn a 3 gaited horse into a 4 gaited one, that's what is really special:) Honestly, with Dari, I went through all that, and even though I am not riding him these days, all it takes to get him to foxtrot is keeping him slow, a speed between walk and trot, nothing else is special about it. There's no bit, no tight noseband, no shoes. It's a fine gait for trail, now getting him to do a lateral gait, that's something else, something that never should have been done. I don't think I'm going to have to do much to get my other horses to gait laterally, it's there, just like Dari's foxtrot is just there. I'd rather focus, like I am, on keeping them relaxed, desensitizing them, and trying to make a good, calm, responsive trail horse. If the others even come close to Dari, he was an awsome, safe, dependable trail horse, then I will be very, very lucky. > Kim
