thank you for your post John, its the best one I have ever read from you! And gave me a new insight into what you are about. People always sing your praises for your endurance winnings and I am a person who just isnt that impressed by endurance winnings :) Mainly because I have ridden harder and longer than most endurance people I know around here so I dont think it takes a real endurance expert to have a corner on the market of riding hard and long and well, many many trail riders do that, but they dont get ribbons. But anyway...
I too have a "three gaited" icelandic. and it IS a bad description. Thank you! for one, he has two trots, one rough and one with almost no percussion at all, my rear doesnt even leave the saddle. But he also does a real animated perky gorgeous smooth walk that someone told me was a "foxwalk". It is much brisker than a quarter horse dogwalk for instance. And then a couple of times he has dropped out of a canter into something that felt like a rack. Was it flying pace? a rack? who knows. Its not something I will be working toward having him doing all the time since it was fastern heck in an area with lots of trees. I get aggravated with the "three gaited" term being "less than". I feel about my horse like you do yours , he is about the best trail horse a person could ask for. But he was known to buck and had a sour attitude when he came back from "tolt training", with prior owners and had white spots on his back and ulcers in his mouth. he still flattens his ears and tail swishes if his saddle isnt on right... as for the camel walk, I was surprised recently when karen said she thought it was something different than my definition. I have always thought a camel walk was what my racking horse stonewall does because thats what it feels like. If you have to ride him at a dogwalk even an hour your lower back begins to ache cause there is such a strong motion from front to back, almost like he is hinged. I also have a walking horse that is very very pacey, and i mean a hard pace. but he has a glorious smooth stepping pace but then again, i have to listen to everyone talk about how "less than" a stepping pace is on other gaited lists. Even lee zeigler said a stepping pace is not good for a horse's frame. But i disagree, and will always disagree. There is no percussion and he can and would do it all day and it is his gait of choice and to get him to do otherwise I would have to use harmful devices etc which I would die first. Ironically, he too is the best trail horse a person could ask for, a search and rescue horse for the sheriffs posse, a flag bearing parade horse down the middle of the highway, whatever. I am more and more convinced these "less than" horses are about a gillion times "more than" those cranked in show horses with the nose bands digging into their flesh and tongues bleeding. My horses are "way more" than that. but thank you for your post it was wonderful! Janice-- even good horses have bad days sometimes.
