>>>I have been vondering why you use the word tölt in the US because you are not happy with it and already have term(s) that describe the gait and it's variations (talking about icelandics now)?<<<
This goes back to the thread on "who buys Icelandics". Way back when, the people who were buying Icelandics were new-to-horses owners, very gullible, and easy to sway. They just accepted everything that was told to them, including the Icelandic is a horse, not a pony; it's different than any other breed; and they all tolt, which no other horse in the world does. When we came around and said the tolt was a rack and that plenty of other breeds did it, it was like blasphemy, sacrilegious. "No, they screamed; that's not right, you can NOT be right. The Icelanders have had this horse for a thousand years, they know; you do not know." Little by little they have come to realize that we are correct. So, the discussion about "tolt" and it's definition, covering all the gaits between trot and pace, is an old discussion. Yes, we know that they use "tolt" as a generic term; we knew that years ago, the same as we use "gait" as a generic term. Only that makes things complicated, doesn't it. It causes confusion, as you can see, from the discussions on the list. But again, that's an old argument. It might have been done ten years ago; in fact, it was done ten years ago, but today it's just silly. The Icelanders have defined "tolt" to be the rack, but they have not defined any other gaits between trot and pace, and it's about time they did. The names and definitions are already in place, and despite the fact that they don't want us to be right, some of them are using the terms today. Judy http://icehorses.net http://clickryder.com
