>>>> I dunno...could be a ton of reasons but the one reason that speaks to me >>>> is weighting. He might not have weights on in the video when he's moving >>>> without a rider (I'd look again, but I can't stomach it)...but if he was >>>> trained with weights...I would suspect that he would still move that way >>>> without them.
I think it's a misconception that weights are the only way - or the major way - to manipulate gait. Remember, this horse isn't gaited. He's three-gaited - no pretense of gaitedness here. What they are manipulating here is the "knee action." His feet are long - not TWH-like with stacks and long toes, but the entire hoof is long. And his shoes are heavier than keg...not TWH-ish, but still heavy. And he's wearing bell boots. All of those things can add a lot of animation/lift/knee-action/whatever to a horse. >>> I don't want to spend any time worrying about whether the offspring would >>> be naturally gaited. There are too many other important things to train a >>> youngster for. I looked on this farm's website and they have some videos of their other stallions' babies at liberty. There is a good bit of natural suspension in the babies, even at liberty and when they are very young. Knee action...not so sure that's natural though... These folks only seem to have three-gaited horses. They have one stallion that is "attired" as five gaited (full mane, enhanced tail) but I didn't see him show gait in the videos. (Wait...do they still use those conventions for differentiating the 3's from the 5's? I really don't know that...) Karen Thomas [EMAIL PROTECTED]
