>>>> It is my understanding, and I'm not sure where I read this, that gaited horses went out of style with aristocracy and there followed the rest of the European world. I'm certainly not a great historian so that could be totally wrong
Well, Laree, you can I may not be historians, but Lee Ziegler was, at least related to gaits. I found some of the things I remembered on the first two pages of her book, Easy-Gaited Horses. Here's one quote: "During the Middle Ages, when European roads were virtually impassable, easy-gaited horses were the prized possessions of the wealthy and were frequently mentioned in their last wills and testaments at ten times the worth of non-gaited horses." She goes on to say: "As the Americans were colonized, easy-gaited horses found a new role providing comfortable transportation through the wilderness of the developing colonies. Although they gradually disappeared from Europe during the 1600's, replaced by trotting carriage horses, carthorses and racehorses, easy-gaited horses were still appreciated in remote areas of Asia and Africa, as well as in the rural areas of the Americas. Whenever and wherever humans relied on riding horses rather than driving horses for transportation, the easy-gaited horse was present and valued." In other words, gaited horses survived in Iceland, the southeastern parts of the USA, Peru, Puerto Rico and in certain parts of Africa and Asia for the same reason - because they are ideal riding horses. Karen Thomas, NC
