What is a gaited horse?

The sound/beat in each step..how to say it...
Trot and clean pace is a two-beat; since the legs move in pairs, there will be two beats before all 4 hooves has hit the ground once and starts moving again. (frontleg+hindleg hits at one time = one beat, next frontleg and hindleg hits the ground =1 beat more which is 2 beats before the first fontleg mooves again) (1+2 - 3+4)

Canter is a 3-beat, as one frontleg and one hindleg hits the ground at the same time (=1 beat), but the other front leg and hindleg hits the ground at different times(= 2 more beats = 3 beats, and then the cycle starts over). (1 - 2+3 - 4)


Walk is 4 beat; all hoves hit the ground one by one, giving one beat per hoof. (1 - 2 - 3 - 4 )

the gaits, referred as ''gaiting'' is 4 beat.. but some are an even 4 beat (1-2-3-4) and some, like stepping pace, is less even (1-2----3-4 and some are something in between)

Sunny; I dunno about gallop, we say ''gallop'' about both canter and galop and say that all horses has 3 gaits, except gaited horses that has 4 or five (because they're supposed to still trot).. I think you might be right, but I dunno.

Well, every horse has a gallop. It's whether they choose to perform it that is questionable. Some gaited horses won't canter OR gallop..

You misunderstood me; we think canter and galop is the same gait :P (but what you call gallop is supposed to be a bad canter..appearantly we like to think that if two things is similiar, one of them is a bad version of the other.)

So all horses has 3 gaits; walk, trot and canter/galopp

Some horses has 4 gaits; walk, trot, tölt/rack and galop/canter

and some has 5 gaits; walk, trot, tölt/rack, canter/galop and pace (two beat only).
And God forbid that you don't trot your gaited horse as well as gait him.

That's all gaits that excits; flat walk, running walk, rack, single foot, foxtrot etc are just variations of tölt (and except rack they're all a bad tölt that you shouldn't ride because they're not pure tölt, just as you shouldn't ride a 4 beat gallop since it's just a bad canter) and amble or stepping pace is just bad pace, that's even worse than the tölt-variations :P

I personally think that we're extremely boring and stuffed up with stupid rules about what's good or bad.

Oh, so in Sweden a gallop and canter are the same thing?

Here, we call a gallop a step up from a canter. A whole nother gait. A 4 beat gait that can reach about 40 mph.

Yeah, pretty much :P
Guess if I was confused untill I figured that out ;)

But Crows 4 beat canter isn't a gallop, it's rather a mix between rack and canter. He does it kinda slow, as if he hasn't completely gotten a good canter yet. It becomes 3 beat if I let him speed up, so at the moment I'm working by getting him to start a clean canter and then I try to get him to slow down without breaking it to a canter-gait mix.. I want him to be able to can'ter slowly :)
I don't think he has ever galloped with me, the times I've urged him on from the high speed three beat canter he started pacing xD

^ Yeah, being a Standardbred he probably would pace instead of gallop.. Or is that just an OTT thing?

OTT = ''off the track'' or ''off the track throughbred''? Didn't know those were gaited?

And we don't pace standardbreds here, we only trot them. :P Most of ours arn't gaited (I'm not really allowed to call him a standardbred either, he has 100% american standardbred bloodlines, but since he's born here he's by some reason a completely different breed; a swedish warmblooded trotter. And if I call him standie, or even mention his american/pacing blood, people will correct me. blergh..)

Anyway.. he picks the canter lovely without pacing, it's just if I get him to run really, really fast he might break off to a pace.. or if I ride him rather slow but then he usually trots..

OTT as in 'off the track'. Notice only 2 't's ;)

Oh, he trots too? Man! Sound like that lil booger has way too many gears!! lol :)

As I said..all gaited horses, here, are supposed to trot as well. I don't trot him at the moment tho.. but I've gotten my saddle back so I might start training that too..

But he's awfully talented *lmao* walk, rack, stepping pace, and just recently someone swore he was doing a foxtrot, and that slow flatwalk thing, and pace and canter..and ''canter-rack'' xD
And he manages to mix everthing to a nice weird soup too.. x__X

Just as you say TWHs has some physical problem if they trot, people here will say they have problems because they don't trot.

Hm..Weird..

Funny how different countries do different things..