Carol, of the gaitedhorse list, wrote this response about running walk and rack:
Well.....what a horse will do for us and what we should ask are two different things. Another example...(I'm always trying to find comparisons to make things easier for me to visualize). Imagine yourself walking at a normal pace just what you do to get from one place to another. Now let's say that you want to move out a bit faster, most of us increase our stride, swing our arms more, and you really get those hips and lower back working as well as your shoulders. Now instead of getting faster that way see yourself "speed walking". Now your legs are moving faster and faster but the stride is shorter and your back is hollow, butt is sticking out, and your body is tense. To me this is the different between a running walk and a rack. The running walk is moderate speed and can go on for a long time just as a nice striding walk of our own. The rack can go faster and faster but at the risk of tension in the body and therefore quicker fatigue. Sprinters vs long distance runners! You can even take this example farther and imagine doing these things in tennis shoes, combat boots, high heels, etc. What we sometimes ask of our horses is to do that long stride while we try to put them in speed walking frame. TM's natural tendency (or what she was taught was expected of her in her early years) is to get speed walk (rack) which makes her body rigid and inverted and fast moving legs. When you give her the message to relax her body muscles and slow but lengthen her strides she moves into her running walk using her bigger body muscles. Of course all this is simplified but it gets us thinking about "posture" for our horses. As an aside this thinking is why I don't think you are going to find a RW gene. I think attitude, conformation, and training just have too much to do with these gaits. Many, many riders I see around here start out nice young colts, saddle them up, pull up their head and see how fast they will go. The horse has no choice but to rack or pace in this posture. Given a chance the horse might have a great RW but most of the time you never know. Carol S _______________________ Judy
