----- Original Message ----- From: "Ashley Gallant" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> . . . To incorporate more gaits as "acceptable" may be confusing/overwhelming to the majority involved with Icelandics...< I think the very idea of allowing or acknowledging as acceptable any other soft gait beyond tolt is going to be a huge point of contention. It would probably be the "deal breaker" at this point. Attitudes about gait in this breed are just not "there" yet, in terms of those who are officers of FEIF, not to mention the USIHC. > . . .especially how that then trickles down to training and breeding. If that is an area you are interested in promoting a lot of thought needs to go into how to do so in a beneficial way for the breed.< Remember, we're talking about sports competition here (unless I missed somehing / a few posts), not breeding evaluations. (Right?) > How are TWH that don't do the running walk, but do another soft gait viewed by the industry, by breeders, by buyers? Are horses with the running walk consistenly in more demand?< That's a great question. Don't know the answer. In talking to Liz, and my own limited exposure to the breed, however, it seems harder and harder to find TWHs who do a running walk -- or perhaps more accurately, are set and ridden in the gait. A lot of people look for more speed than the RW offers, so "push" their walkers over into a rack or a stepping pace. I've heard several acquaintances who have Walkers call the gait their horse is doing a running walk when it was very obviously a stepping pace. But it is smooth and the people bought a Tennessee Walking Horse, so that *MUST BE* the gait the horse does. : ) I think people think that since this breed was bred to cover ground, the signature gait should be relatively fast. But really, (and Janice, you correct me if I have this wrong!), the breed was developed to do a brisk, faster-than-a-plain-ol-walk, smoother-than-a-trot gait ALL day. That was the true running walk. It was a gait the horse could sustain for hours, so it WAS effecient in covering ground without busting the plantation owner's butt. But it wasn't a speed gait per se. -- Renee M. in Michigan -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.21.1 - Release Date: 02/25/2008 12:00 AM
