>>> I will NEVER learn. I feel a tantrum coming on. I can't see pace, at >>> least the hard (ship rolling on a heavy sea) pace Twist does where his >>> feet on one side work in sync. I would have guessed either stepping >>> pace or maybe even flat walk. I probably should just go outside and >>> ride.
Never take my word for it. I think I understand the gaits fairly well, but my eyes can be pretty bad. And if there's any way to conjure up an optical illusion, I seem to be very talented at doing so! :) Besides, there will probably be some points where one of us might consider a gait, for instance, to be a slightly-diagonal running walk, where the next person might consider it a towards-square foxtrot. Believe me, if that's all we have to quibble over, I could care less! Transitions confuse things too - and unfortunately for those of us trying to analyze gaits, horses at liberty are always changing speeds, and maybe changing gaits too. I just assumed that Judy wanted us to look at the gait at the beginning, not as she slowed down. And, btw, I should have clarified: I think it starts as pace. But as she slows, the pace gets more broken - or at least I think so. So, I see pace at the beginning, barely broken, but then I see it transition down through a step or so of step pace, down through as step or two of walk before she stops. So, depending on where you made your decision, I may agree with you....assuming my eyes are working well today. I think it's helpful when Judy shows the slow motion so that we can see the footfalls more clearly. But, the downside to slo-mo is that we forget what the real speed is. I've done that a couple of times - tried to assign a "soft gait" to the plain old ordinary walk. Judy, I hate to be picky, but what might be helpful when you do these would be to tack on the original, actual-speed clip to the tail-end of the slo-mo, so we can be reminded of the speed. (That did sound picky, didn't it...sorry!) Karen Thomas, NC
