Yes - the Arab riding endurance riders I condition with are quite put off by Hunter's gaitedness.
He has now been accepted into the group as a viable limited distance horse, but it had taken two years. He ran a sharp stick into his sole a few months ago and when I asked my friend if he looked "off", she said something like "well, he moves so funny I don't think I can tell." In the beginning, one woman claimed Hunter was scaring the other horses. I'm not sure I ever bought into that because one time she rembers in particular I wasn't riding Hunter, but I did wonder if his different sounding footfalls were a signal to the trotting horses that something was wrong - he was afraid- therefore they should be. He has turned into the horse that can usually step forward and lead the group through scarey situations as he did recently when some folks wer shooting & shooting & shooting. He just walked bravely through all that noise with a line of grey Arabs coming along behind. Nancy
