An American Saddlebred performing the rack
Five-gaited
horses are notable for their ability to perform five distinct
horse gaits
instead of simply the three gaits, walk,
trot
and
canter or gallop
common to most horses.
[a]
Individual animals with this ability are often seen in the
American Saddlebred
horse breed, though the
Icelandic horse
also has five-gaited individuals, though with a different set of gaits than the Saddlebred.
The ability to perform an ambling gait or to pace appears to be due to a specific genetic mutation.
[1]
[2]
Some horses are able to both trot and perform an ambling gait, but many can only do one or the other,
[3]
thus five-gaited ability is not particularly common in the horse world.
In the American Saddlebred and related breeds, the five gaits performed are the walk, trot, canter, and two
ambling gaits
: the rack, a fast, lateral, four-beat gait that is synchronous? "each foot meets the ground at equal, separate intervals";
[4]
and a "slow gait", a slower, smooth collected four-beat gait that is asynchronous ? "the lateral front and hind feet start almost together but the hind foot contacts the ground slightly before its lateral forefoot."
[4]
Another name for the slow gait is the stepping pace.
[5]
The
USEF
is clear that the slow gait is not merely a slow version of the rack,
[4]
but the primary difference between the two is the slight hesitation between the second and third beats of the slow gait.
[5]
A five-gaited horse might also perform the
fox trot
rather than the stepping pace.
[6]
The tolt
In the Icelandic horse, the five gaits are the walk, trot, canter,
tolt
and the
skeið
, or flying pace. The
tolt
is a lateral four-beat gait compared to the rack of the Saddlebred, but in style of performance sometimes more closely resembles the
largo
of the
Paso Fino
, or the running walk of the
Tennessee Walking Horse
. Like all lateral ambling gaits, the footfall pattern is the same as the walk (left hind, left front, right hind, right front), but differs from the walk in that it can be performed at a range of speeds, from the speed of a typical fast walk up to the speed of a normal canter. Some Icelandic horses prefer to tolt, while others prefer to trot.
[7]
The
flying pace
is a two-beat lateral gait, with a moment of suspension between the two sets of footfalls. At racing speeds, horses can perform the flying pace at speeds close to 30 mph.
[8]
Icelandics that can perform the
tolt
but not the flying pace are called "four-gaited."
[7]
Other
gaited horse
breeds may be able to perform five gaits, and individual horses of breeds not normally noted for possessing ambling gaits may also do so. Examples of these include the part-Saddlebred
National Show Horse
,
[9]
the
Arabian horse
,
[10]
[b]
the
Morgan
,
[12]
and the
Morab
.
[13]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
Some studies of horse gaits classify the canter and gallop as separate gaits due to the slight difference in footfall timing; the canter or lope is a three-beat gait, the gallop has the same footfall pattern, but the second beat of the canter is extended out to become two separate beats in the gallop
- ^
*
Raseyn
was notable for being trained to perform five gaits and transmitted this ability to some of his descendants.
[11]
References
[
edit
]