>>> Anyway, he's not my horse to work with, but my guess is that this is one >>> "ingrained pacer" with some untapped potential for more than just pace...
I should mention, when I took those pics in 2004, the trainer riding him had only worked with him a couple of short sessions, and was already seeing some improvement, even without an ideal saddle. His owner wasn't an experienced rider at all, and couldn't afford to pay for many training sessions - she was going through a divorce. I'm not sure what happened to him since. I know at least one other "trainer" later rode him for maybe 2-3 minutes in a VERY tight saddle, got off and pronounced him a hopeless hard pacer. Anyway, it's cases like this that make me continue to encourage people to learn more about the gaits, and to look for little glimmers that there might be more than pace in a horse, and to try to isolate other causes of pace (like saddle fit, etc.). No one seems to want a hard-pacer, and that just breaks my heart. Personally, I think that the horse was a prime candidate for a treeless saddle - if he'd been my horse, that would have been the first thing I'd change. Karen Thomas, NC
