On 9/6/07, Nancy Sturm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Two hundred to 300 gaited horses all in one place? I'm speechless. > > The last endurance ride we did, I think in my division (25 miles) there were > five gaited horses.
The Alabama state horse is the Racking Horse and I live 40 miles from alabama. I have been on rides with the southern trail riders assoc where there were about 150 people and maybe 5 non-gaited. This was in Troy Alabama. I camp there regularly and go on rides at Coldwater equestrian camp and often I don't see anything but gaited horses. I understand that nationally the field trial competitions have other than gaited horses but here if you had a non gaited horse i believe, and i have heard there have been cases, that it would fall out dead by the end. Its 3-6 hours of non stop gaiting across wooded fields, no trails, and altho there is topping for the dogs to do their thing, a non gaited horse would have to canter pretty hard and fast to keep up. I know endurance people believe they are about the top in equine performance activity but these field trialers who compete every weekend in season tell me they feed their horse 25 pounds of feed a day and its underweight. thats how hard they go. but as for gaited horses, there is a McCurdy Plantation Horse ride where you have about 200 people and of that almost all are gaited and probably 90% are that one specific breed of gaited horse. Janice -- yipie tie yie yo
