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Trotting an icey

1K views 5 replies 5 participants last post by  wbwks 
#1 ·
Hello!

I recently bought a rising 5 year old icelandic mare - she's 5 gaited, and her preferred gait under saddle is tolt. We're working on trot at the moment - she offers it fairly easily, particularly when she's a bit tired, so we usually do a few circuits at the end of every schooling session to let her know it's OK to do, but we're not at the stage where we can really worry about collecting, straightening, or doing anything much beyond just getting the legs moving in a diagonal!

Trouble is, her trot is so ruddy smooth I can never tell when I have it! There's a slight, but hardly noticeable change from tolt to trot, and it gets a bit more bumpy, but that's it. I have to ask folk to watch to confirm when we've got it. I also cannot post to it. I dont know if that is just because she doesn't have a firm rhythm yet, or if it's because her little legs so so fast I just can't keep up, but I just can't find it!

At the moment I lean forward and up out of the saddle to help her loosen and find the gait, but the day will come when I want to help her sustain it and get a rhythm - and if I can't cope with that when trying to post I don't know how to expect her to! As she's young though I don't really want to just use sitting trot and have me stuck to her back!

Although she's my fist icey, she's not the first I've ridden, and I've never had any problems posting to their trots before, so I don't know if this is just a young unbalanced horse thing, or if its her trot specifically?

Anyone else had this problem with their gated horses? Is this something that will improve as she gets older, or does her smooth trot mean I'm always going to struggle?
 
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#2 ·
Gaited horses definitely have a smoother trot than not gaited. I'm not sure what you're looking for though. It shouldn't matter if you're sitting on her back if you aren't bouncing, which you aren't, do you not sit to the tolt?

My mare does both pretty easily but her trot is very smooth. For my mare a faster speed helps with the trot while a tolt I ask for with just a tad of collection instead of a more forward and loose "go" (does that make sense?). I know they can tolt pretty darn quickly so don't know if that trick would help your horse. It's just something I've noticed with mine, she can do both at different speeds it's more about how I ride her. She's also in her 20s and well trained, so while in theory if I were to ride your horse I'd ask the same I wouldn't necessarily expect her to respond to clearly.
 
#3 ·
I think if I asked my mare to 'go faster' in tolt I'd end up with pace, or a horrible unbalanced pacy tolt at least - she's only just started under saddle, so I don't want to encourage her to rush into different gates. To find her trot I really have to get her to stretch and loosen, so it's about very loose reins, and getting right up off her back and putting my weight forward right now. As such although I can sit very happily to the trot, I don't want to. I do sit to the tolt, but she's a natural tolter, and other than working on collection and rhythm we don't have any issues with that. She doesn't offer tolt naturally under saddle - we had to do a lot of liberty work to 'find' it, and now we are attempting to replicate that under saddle.

As we move forward I want to be able to start working with her trot in a way which gives her as much flexibility and freedom in the back as possible, without me having to ride around in a half standing, exaggerated leaning position. Posting would be the easiest way of doing this, but I just can't find the rhythm.

I've trotted many iceys - some have smooth trots, some have huge bouncy trots that I really struggle to sit to - hers is the first one I've just not been able to find a rhythm to rise to at all though. It may be we find it in time, but I just wondered if anyone else had ever experienced this (especially in a youngster).

I've had horses with trots that have thrown me out of the saddle, horses where I've felt like I have to rise double time to keep up with them, and horses where I feel like I spend an age in the air before I come back down, but never one where I can't seem to figure out when to be up and down before - it's just kind of disorientating! :D
 
#5 ·
I also have an OTSTB but with trotting breeding, he did race on the trot for 124 starts and 200K in winnings, but his preferred saddle gait is a singlefoot/saddle rack. I have trotted him undersaddle and had immediate regrets. I have had both pacing and trotting STBs before who had beautiful trots under saddle, but not my guy :)

If I could post pictures here I would, for some odd reason horseforum hates my pictures.
 
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