>>>> that's the *best* tolt, is the exact four-beat midpoint between trot and pace, is how i have been given to understand it. but if some tolt is a little lateral or diagonal, and goes one-two--thre-four, this is just not quite as perfect a tolt, but still comes under the term. (i had a long conversation about this yesterday with a different native Icelandic speaker...)
First, my apologies to any Icelandic speakers on the list for what I'm about to say. My frustration is with Vicka, not with Icelanders as a whole... Well, Vicka, "one native Icelandic speaker" certainly trumps all of us and all of the dumb Americans who've studied gaits for years and years... and yes, that was very sarcastic. There are people on this list who really, genuinely want to learn. You've had this horse for 6-8 months, your first gaited horse, your first Icelandic. There are people on this list who have had horses for 30-50 YEARS! Some have had gaited horses almost that long. There are at least a million other gaited horses in the USA, and maybe 2,000-3000 in the USA. You're one of the newest to horses on this list, newest to Icelandics, yet you argue more than anyone - and mostly you are arguing about language trivia, nothing that matters to the horses that I can see. You are not getting our point, at least not mine. This is not a list about the Icelandic LANGUAGE. It's not a list about semantics. It's a list about HORSES - Icelandic horses. Wonderful, living, breathing creatures. Karen Thomas, NC
