All The Gaits: Explaining the Movement of Gaited Horses

I was asked by Karen to further explain the gaits of gaited horses, as not everyone is familiar with them. This was kind of a "Doh!" moment for me, as having grown up around Paso Finos and coming from a country where over 60% of the equine population in it is gaited, I do take that knowledge for granted.

Riding Lucero. Long time readers have seen this photo ad nauseum. For 20 years owning him, I don't have that many photos of us riding (this was during a time before cell phone cameras), and this is one of my favorites.
What gait are we doing? This, my friends, is the paso largo. More of that shortly.

A couple of years ago, Equus Magazine published a wonderful article on gaiting where they explained the footfalls of the basic "special gaits" across the gaited horse breeds. I had never thought about it before, but it was true: gaited horses all have the same varieties of "special gaits". What changes is the speed, laterality, and the knee, hock and fetlock action throughout each gait and each breed. The footfalls for each special gait are basically the same throughout.

Just like in your regular walk/trot/canter horses. Note that all of the horses below are trotting and are in similar phases of the trot. But note also how different each trot appears based on the breed, discipline and individual horse's conformation:

Same thing applies to gaited horses.

I will start with dispelling one of the biggest notions regarding gaited horses: "It's unnatural" "It's trained into the horse". Umm, no it's not. Lucero could gait from the time he was born. He'd gait at liberty when I started working with him at 7 months of age.

Lucero was not a freak of nature. Check out these adorable babies:

5 month old Colombian Paso colt, gaiting behind his mother.

At liberty with no training aids.

A 3-day old Colombian Paso Fino foal! Watch his legs when he calms down.

So you have horses that are born moving diagonally (trot) and horses born moving laterally (this type of movement is known by the generic term "pace"). Horses that move laterally, aka are able to pace, are considered "gaited." When pacing, the horse's legs on the same side of the body move forwards at the same time instead of diagonally. This creates a movement that has a side-to-side sway for the rider, as well as having the potential to be quite bouncy depending on the animation of the horse's movement, the speed at which the horse is travelling, and the tension in the horse's body: some gaited horses will be "pacey" when tense, creating a rougher ride for the rider. The pace is considered an undesirable gait in some breeds, but is actually selectively bred for in other breeds. Examples of horses where the pace is cultivated:

Racking horse demonstrating the speed rack. Speed racking horses are close relatives of the Tennessee Walker, and thus this gait is named after one of the 5 gaits that the TWH can perform
Depending on who you ask and what breed they are affiliated with, this is actually considered pacing. The difference between a proper TWH rack and the pace is that in the pace you can have a moment of suspension with all 4 feet off the ground, especially at speed, while in the rack there is always one foot on the ground. The rack tends to be more comfortable than the pace due to the horse always having one foot on the ground, eliminating that moment of suspension. The lateral movement, however, is the same, as noted in these 4 photos. In my own personal world, the two gaits are synonymous when performed at this speed; you can often eliminate that second of suspension of the pace and turn it into a rack-type gait with minor adjustments to your position, allowing for a slightly more collected & organized movement. So basically, what we call a rack in the TWH is a refinement of the pace. All gaited horses can pace from the time they are born but not all of them can rack. Some can rack with no special training, others need to be conditioned to be able to perform the rack. It's very similar to training a trotting horse for that medium trot in dressage.

Icelandic horse performing the flying pace.
They are raced at this gait.

A pacing Standardbred. Note that this photo captured the moment of suspension when all 4 feet are off the ground.
Standardbreds can either be trotters or pacers.
Dom's Ozzy can do both.

Andadura horse demonstrating the andadura gait. The andadura used for racing can be equivalent to a rack or a pace: the smoothness of the gait is secondary to its speed.
Andadura horses are close relatives of the Puerto Rican Paso Fino.
Lucero had fine Paso Fino bloodlines but had been bred to be an andadura racer.
When asked to canter or gallop, this is the gait he performed. His version was more of a pace.

As you can see by the photos, all of these horses are performing exactly the same gait despite being of very different breeds and the same gait having different names. Here they are in motion:

Andadura race in PR. Yes, they ride bareback. I don't know why. And yes, they ride on pavement: you can hear the hoof beats on the pavement, which also allows you to hear if the horse breaks gait and gallops. If they gallop they are disqualified.

This is one hell of an amazing racking horse. Note how smooth he is when he accelerates. Note how he is able to go THAT FAST while maintaining one foot on the ground all the time. Check out the speedometer on the car from which the video is being filmed!

This video shows the flying pace of the Icelandic horse with motion capture. You can see the difference between this, what is considered a true pace, and the horse above that is racking when both horses slow down in the videos.

All the slower gaits that come after the speed rack/pace/andadura/flying pace are basically slower versions of the rack or the pace depending on exactly how lateral the movement of the horse is.

There are different names for the same gait in different languages and different horse breeds. In the TWH, a true rack (not a speed rack) is a four beat gait executed at medium speed. The timing should be even, with the same amount of time between each foot striking the ground. The ability to perform this gait is passed on genetically and can be present in a horse to a greater or lesser degree. Some horses, for example high caliber Pasos that are bred for showing, are so thoroughly bred for this gait that the diagonal and lateral gait are not present at all, and the horse will perform a paso gait always, right from the day he is born. (See the video above of the 5 month old Paso with his mother).

Rack in the TWH

TWH mare and foal, both demonstrating the rack!

Video of a TWH demonstrating the rack.

The equivalent of the 4-beat rack in the Paso Fino horse is called the paso largo. It is exactly like the rack in that it is a four beat gait executed at medium speed. In pleasure quality Pasos, it can be more lateral, aka pace-like.

Video of the paso largo

In the Icelandic horse, this gait is known as the tolt.

Note how the footfalls are exactly as in the buckskin Paso performing the paso largo above!
There's just a lot more animation in the Icelandic's movement.


Video of the tolt

In the Missouri Fox Trotter, it is the fox trot.

Again, same gait. But the Fox Trotter has less animation than the Paso Fino and the Icelandic.


Video of the fox trot

In the rack, the paso largo, the fox trot and the tolt, the footfall pattern is the same as for the walk, being left hind, left front, right hind and right front. As explained above, there is no suspension phase like there is in the trot and pace because there is always at least one foot on the ground at any given time. As there is no suspension phase, the rider does not experience the bounce as in the trot and pace. Listening to the gait, it sounds like pa-ca-pa-ca-pa-ca. In Latin American countries where gaited horses are prevalent it is common to see them ridden on pavement to show off the sound of the gait. Back home on the island we had a couple of barns on our street and in the afternoons after work the owners of some of the horses would take them out for a jaunt. The pa-ca-pa-ca ring of shod hooves performing the paso largo on pavement still reminds me of long hot afternoons feeding Lucero and picking his stall. He'd always blast a whinny as these horses were ridden down our street.

Then we have the gaits that are even more collected. They are also 4 beat gaits with a footfall pattern imitating the walk but the horse glides along at the speed of a slower trot, sometimes even as slow as a Western jog.

In the TWH, this is known as the running walk.

   

This beautiful gelding demonstrates a perfect running walk during the first minute or so of the video.

 In the Paso, it is called the paso corto.

In most of the other gaited breeds, it's just a slower version of their medium gait. Example: it's a slower tolt in the Icelandic and a slower fox trot in the MFT. When you slow the gait down, you end up with 3 feet always on the ground at any given time during the horse's stride progression.

Show quality Paso Finos can be collected even further: they can do the fino gait which looks almost like a piaffe in manic fast forward. The horse's legs move rapidly with tiny strides, with more or less animation depending on the individual horse and barely any forward progression. Not all Paso Finos can fino-pleasure/trail quality Pasos are more likely to amble along at the paso largo and andadura depending on their capacity for speed while others can do the corto and largo. The fino is trained into Pasos bred for show just like you train the piaffe in an upper level dressage horse: you work on ultimate collection. In the Paso world there is a term called brio, aka "spirit". Show quality Pasos are expected to have tons of brio, which is what also makes them more likely to have very animated collected gaits that will win in the show ring. A horse with a lot of brio will have a really awesome fino. Some trainers create "brio" by abusing the horses and turning them into nervous wrecks. A really GOOD show Paso however can execute with brio on command: you can just as easily ask for a super collected, animated fino as you can get them to move out in a ground-covering paso largo on the trail as you can get them to walk in a relaxed manner with their head down on a loose rein. (The ability to just walk with their heads down is something that is not often trained into these horses but it is something that I will train into individuals I work with - I think this is important that they be able to stretch and relax while having a rider on their back, especially if they are not going to be showing.)

What the fino gait looks like in photos

But to really appreciate the fino gait, you have to see it in motion:

 

If you want to read more about my own personal experiences with these horses, I wrote a pretty cool post two years ago on my experience with Paso Finos vs Trote Galope horses during a pretty adventurous trip to Homestead, FL, where we got to try out and ride a variety of gaited and "diagonal" horses, from show caliber to trail quality. (The post does start with saddle woes; skip to the 6th paragraph or so to find the story about the Pasos.) It's still one of my biggest blog hits! It also shows the pride that us Latinos take in our Paso Fino horses: we like to show them off. We like to show them off so much that we'll let you ride them so you can see what an awesome ride we have. ;) 

Developing Lightness in Arctic Weather

Yesterday we tackled the cold again. It was a balmy 24 degrees. (HA!) I changed what I wore, however.

- a thin, "modern" thermal shirt with extra long sleeves (they reach my knuckles.) Courtesy of Target.
- a Cuddl Duds Fleecewear thermal long sleeve layer
- a boucle wool blend turtleneck (scored at Victoria's Secret a long time ago. It is fuzzy, soft and warm!)
- my ELT fleece jacket
- Cuddl Duds Flex Wear thermal pants
- silk thermal pants over them (also courtesy of Target)
- Power Stretch Kerrits again
- similar sock combo, and same boots
(Yes, I do wash the stuff I repeat in between wearing them again. I'm OCD that way.)
- for gloves, I found my "good" pair hiding at the bottom of a suitcase. They are made with angora wool, and I got them for just $3 at this super cheapo store over here named Gallo (how and where we found that store is a whole other story...it started with us needing scrubs for work at the time and turned into quite the adventure). They fit well on my tiny skinny-fingered hands, and I put them to the true test, which they passed with flying colors! Hurray $3 gloves! To think I almost didn't get them at the time...the little things even wash well. I've been throwing them in the washer and they come out like new.
- I took my quilted black jacket that is supposed to be good down to 9 degrees.

I could move for sure this time! 

As it turns out, I never needed to wear the black jacket. Nice! I guess I made better choices clothing-wise. It probably helped that there was no wind...

Lily was calmer on the cross ties, so we did no prior lunging and I just got on in the outdoor. I had made it to the barn earlier than the day before, so we were actually catching the warmest part of the day, and with adequate layers, it actually felt nice in the sun (I never in my life thought I'd be talking about it feeling "nice" in the sun in 20 degree weather...) We walked and walked and walked, straight lines, circles of different sizes, backed up, did turns on the haunches, shoulder in, counter shoulder in, baby leg yields. Everything to get every little muscle on Lily warmed up. We trotted a bit in both directions, then repeated everything at the walk again. Trot on a loose rein a couple of times around the arena at her own pace, then a big 20m circle at the canter in both directions to get her blood really pumping. She was really uphill at the canter yesterday, and wanting to be collected-I wanted to keep going, but didn't think it would be a good idea to canter a lot in this weather on a horse that has never experienced a real winter before. I read this article recently-I think Equus must have published a similar article about that OSU study at one point, too. BQ has also referred to it.

After that, it was all mostly trot work. We did small figure 8's across the arena, in no particular pattern, looping one through another, at a collected sitting trot. Lily was really happy to be collected.

Our "needlepoint" tracings in the arena after our intertwining figure 8's exercises

I tried doing giant X's with her at a more forward trot afterwards, but she wasn't really feeling the forwardness, so I didn't insist and continued our little exercises. We did spirals in every corner of the arena in one direction, sitting the trot as we spiraled in, then going back to posting as we spiraled out; change direction across the diagonal, and repeat in the opposite direction. Around this time we'd already been riding a good 40 minutes since the initial walk warm-up was so long. So I decided to try a new exercise I just found in the 101 Dressage Exercises book. It's called the 10-10-10. It is Exercise 84 in the Developing Lightness section; page 184. You canter 10 strides, trot 10 strides, canter 10 strides, walk 10 strides. Mix and match. We only did walk-trot 10 strides. This was FUN! Lily did get impatient with it, but it had the desired effect once she understood that I really did want her to do all of these transitions. We went through phases: she tried anticipating the trot command at the walk, then she got a feel for the count and started trying to offer the transitions on her own, so we started doing 12-12-12 instead. At this point she stopped anticipating, came UP in her entire frame and lightened on the forehand, arching her neck on loose reins. I looked down at our shadow and she looked almost like a Paso Fino, her nose straight down in a vertical line, neck up and arched but with her poll at the highest point, ears flicked back towards me, listening.

Lily's head and neck looked like this little Paso's, on reins that were that loose!

I fell in love with this exercise, and it is going in the toolbox. It will be interesting to see what she does when we add the cantering...I have a feeling we'll have to do more like 20-20-20...

After that, Sally joined me on Jezebel. I have liked Sally since the first time I met her, and now that Charles and I are living closer to the barn, I'm hoping to be able to be riding buddies with her. Lily was finally wanting to extend after the 10-10-10 exercise, so we did giant Xs while Sally warmed up Jezebel at walk and trot. On Tuesday she had tried to ride as well, but Jezebel had also been a freak show-she hadn't even been able to get on her! The little TB was a good girl this day, however, and gave Sally a nice ride. Afterwards we just walked and walked and walked around the arena, side by side, talking. Hadn't done that in a long time-not since my last ride with Diana.

And today, we shall brave the SNOW! It snowed last night! I will actually get to see how Lily reacts to her first time in the white stuff. :)

Lucero

On August 29, 2012, Lucero, my Paso Fino died. He turned 20 this past April.

I had posted about him back in March, but I felt so guilty about everything that was happening with him, that I removed the post.

I haven't been able to write about this. But I need to-I need to recognize how important he was in my life, and how much I am going to miss him, and make sure that he is never forgotten. So I will tell you about him.

I've written about Lucero here before. He was my island boy, my first horse, given to me by my grandfather when I was 13 years old. I had begged and begged for a horse for 3 years and had submerged myself in riding lessons and learning about their care. I had to prove how much I wanted this. We had 2 acres of property, shared by my grandmother's and my grandfather's houses. We lived in the larger house at the top of the hill; my grandfather in a small cottage further down. There were 2 stalls in his backyard-one of them had been set up as a chicken coop, the other was simply a vacant stall. Towards the end of 1992, I watched eagerly as the dirt floor of that second stall was re-done with concrete, and a couple of weeks later, on November 4, we arrived home from art school to find my horse had finally, finally come home.

Lucero was just a spunky little weanling at the time, with a blond mane that stood up every which way, ears covered in ticks from having been turned out 24/7 since he was born, and the most curious nose I'd ever met. He'd had very little human contact since he'd been born, as the young horses at the breeding operation that he came from were mostly untouched until weaning time. You couldn't tell though. Even as a youngster, he was fearless and opinionated.

Baby boy. A month after he had arrived (his ears had already been de-ticked, of course!)

My grandfather initially helped me raise him. Grandpa had old school training methods, not violent, but nowhere near the natural horsemanshp methods we are so familiar with today. I'd never heard of Parelli, Monty Roberts, or Buck Branaman-their training style was still unknown on the island. I read all of Grandpa's old horse training books, and, horrified, I decided there had to be a better way. So I figured things out by myself-I trained Lucero based on my own methods that ended up being very close to what we know today as natural horsemanship: good behavior was rewarded, bad behavior was either ignored (such as him grabbing at his stall door with his teeth at feeding time-I'd make him wait, doing other things, until he stopped), corrected (if he tried to lean on me while leading him, I made him stop and back up), or turned into something productive (later when I was riding him, if he balked or tried to choose where he wanted to go, I'd make him circle to distract him and turn him in the direction I wanted him to go.) It was not easy-I was just a kid, and I wasn't always the most patient, and sometimes I really was afraid of Lucero. One time he reared and struck out while my grandfather was leading him, nailing Grandpa in the back with a front hoof-he missed blowing out a kidney by fractions of an inch. Lucero was a feisty little thing, and super-smart-you always had to be on your toes around him, because he would test you every step of the way. But with time and dedication, and the occassional help from a trainer, he became more and more manageable, and learned that he could not do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. I never gave up, though, and I continued to educate myself as Lucero grew, so I could shape him into the horse that I wanted him to be. In the end, 99% of his training was done by me.

I rode him for the first time when he was 3 years old. I could've started him at 2.5, but I chose to give him the extra 6 months. I was 16 years old. At this point, I had introduced him to the saddle and bridle, he knew how to lunge and he would obey voice commands (when he wanted sometimes, but his favorite was "whoa", and he would always, always stop on command. If he could get out of work, he would!).He was 100% desensitized, and I had already introduced him to the weight of a person on his back, hopping up and hanging draped over his back. He never cared.

I had started taking jumping lessons at this point-I had always thought he'd be a handful to ride, and figured if I could stay on on a freaky OTTB trying to bolt coming up to a fence, staying on a baby Paso would be a piece of cake.

As it turned out, it was kind of an anticlimax. I got on Lucero for the first time, Grandpa holding the end of the lunge line, and Lucero just stood there. He nuzzled my feet a couple of times, but just stood quietly. He had never been nervous, but this did not upset him in the least. He stood there like he knew that this was what was meant to happen, like he knew that this was his job-he was my horse, and my place was on his back.



Grandpa held the end of the lunge line during those first rides.


I was surprised at how difficult it was to teach him leg cues. He was thick-skinned, so unlike Lily in this sense, and I had done such a good job desensitizing him that I guess I took it too far-even with the tap of the lunge whip, he wouldn't always go forward when asked when it was accompanied by a leg squeeze or the tap of a heel. You truly had to want to go for him to go. Years later when friends of mine would get on him for a spin, he would just stand there because he knew they were timid or downright afraid. "I know you're not my mom, and I know you don't really want me to move...so I won't." No one else could ride him, not because he was naughty, but because he simply would grow roots whenever anyone else was in the saddle!



Posing during one of our first rides


The only time I fell off of him was probably about a year later. I went through a long phase of riding him bareback, but we had a small argument as to where we were going. Circling wasn't working-he figured out that he could back up into oblivion and thus get out of going forward. Well, he backed himself up into the fence, and he was so focused on arguing with me, that it caught him completely by surprise! He leaped forward into the air and I went flying, somehow rocketing over his shoulder and landing under his feet. I felt him scramble and jump over me, doing everything to avoid stepping on me. He did graze my chest with a hoof, but I didn't feel it at the time-only later when it turned into a purple bruise. I just lay there for a minute with the wind knocked out of me. My little man, instead of turning tail and running for his stall like I expected, stood by me trembling, watching me, as if thinking, "Oh my God! I killed her!"

I did get back on, but afterwards I rode with a saddle 80% of the time! He never got into that sort of argument with me again, and in 21 years of owning him, I never fell off of him again.

I was a shy kid and wasn't very good at making friends-I was socially awkward. But Lucero was my best friend. Growing up, he was my reality check. If I was feeling sorry for myself, he'd get an attitude and try to nip at me playfully, "Stop feeling sorry for yourself." Most of the time, it worked. I could always count on him to make me smile, and taking care of him myself every day motivated me to keep going even in the middle of adolescent funks. His care was the one constant in my life, and it most likely kept me out of trouble, not that I was ever tempted to do things like party, drink or do drugs like some of the kids were doing at my high school. My excuse was that I had to be home in the evening to feed him.

I hated how I looked in this pic-I had gained the freshman 15 and then some, but I loved how Lucero looked, and this was my grandfather's favorite photo of us. It was on his desk until the day he died.

When I turned 19, however, I developed a deathly allergy to horses. I couldn't so much as pet him for more than a minute, before my eyes would start tearing up, I'd begin sneezing uncontrollably, and I'd become so congested I couldn't breathe. The allergies were manageable in the beginning, but over time they became so bad that I'd end up wheezing, feeling like I was breathing through a straw-I would have an anaphylactic reaction to horses. After almost ending up in the hospital a couple of times after trying to clean his stall, I had to quit riding, and Lucero's care was relegated to Grandpa's handyman. I still fed him, but our handyman did his stall.

It was 4 years before I figured out a way around this. 4 long years. I had nightmares about that time for a long time-it was like I had lost a piece of my soul. Lucero sat in his stall, and I turned him out to eat the long grass on our hill when I could, but sometimes even that would be enough to trigger an allergic reaction. I considered finding him another home, but the Paso world in PR was a cruel one, and the chances of him ending up in the hands of someone who would most likely abuse him or ride him into the ground were very high. I kept him, figuring that this was better than submitting him to an uncertain and most likely horrible fate.

He always knew he was hot stuff. :)

When I was 23, Flonase and Zyrtec had become very popular as prescription allergy meds. I read about them, and asked my doctor for samples. I didn't really expect them to work, but after a week on both medications, I walked into Lucero's stall and brushed him.

It was the first time in 4 years that I could touch him without sneezing, without my eyes tearing up. My throat got a little itchy, but that was it. It was really and truly a miracle. I tried again the next day, and over time, my throat stopped itching altogether. After 3 months, I started weaning myself off of the allergy medication-I continued the Zyrtec, but dropped to Flonase just once a day, and then stopped it altogether after a few more months. Over the course of the next year, I was able to completely stop taking them-as long as I was exposed to horses every day, the allergies stayed at bay. Go figure.

I started conditioning Lucero, and soon I was riding him 3-5 times a week. But then he started having allergies himself. He developed heaves, and during the summer, rides had to be kept to a minimum because he would be so congested. Some summers in PR, there is a serious problem with the African sands-they make the sky white, they coat cars with a fine dusty layer, and exacerbate respiratory issues, in man and beast alike. I was unaffected, but Lucero was not-I tried cough medication, decongestants, antibiotics-nothing worked; nothing made his condition better. Most supplements did nothing. And then I discovered Ester-C about 2 years after he developed the condition, and somehow this kept his symptoms at bay. Like with myself, I was eventually able to discontinue the Ester-C, and he continued to breathe easy long after I moved to FL with Charles.

That same year I started riding him again, I moved him to a little barn across the street where I could have him on full board and have more horizontal space to ride-riding on the slant of our hill got old after awhile. Those next 2 years were probably our best together-I rode him more than I ever did as a teenager, and he looked amazing: he was fit, his coat glossy, his mane looked like spun gold. He was one of the most beautiful horses in the barn, and was often complemented. People marvelled at our bond, too-he was still feisty and spunky as ever, but I trusted him 100%. One time Lucero had developed a fungal infection on his back legs, and I was sitting on the ground practically underneath him treating it-not something I would have done with any other horse-when one of the other boarders made a comment about it, probably thinking how stupid I was, but I told her I knew this horse would never do anything to hurt me. And he never did.

Riding in the arena at the new barn

I always wanted to ride him on the beach, but I'd never had access to a trailer to teach him to load, and the trailers at the barn were all very small-I couldn't see myself trying to convince him to get up into such a small space comfortably. The Bayamon river flowed through the valley next to the barn, and I had been told that if you followed the river, it was a 4-hour ride to get to the beach. When I was 24, I started conditioning him hard-core, with the intention of one day doing that long ride. But his conditioning was thwarted when summer came, along with a particularly bad season of African sands. He couldn't tolerate even a 15 minute ride without wheezing. I wouldn't discover Ester-C until that winter, and the following summer I started my long-distance relationship with Charles.

I moved from the island in the winter of 2004. By then, I had taught my kid cousins to ride, and my uncle took over Lucero's care-he would belong to my cousins, who adored him. It was the first time in his life that he would go for anyone other than myself. I was happy with this decision and felt that it would be a good life for my baby.

One of the first lessons with my cousins. Lucero kept trying to follow me instead of staying out on the lunge circle!

Juan, my cousin, riding Lucero off-lead

Lucero makes my cousin Melissa smile

However, my cousins' passion for horses was short-lived, and after 2 years, my uncle threw in the towel on Lucero's care. At this point, Charles and I were broke and I couldn't afford to bring Lucero to FL, nor even send money to pay for his board. My mom took over his care for me.

Happy in his broodmare stall, enjoying his retirement. This photo was taken about 2 years after I had left the island. His stripe had started to blend out with gray.

I wish I had brought him with me when I could. I wish I would've made the arrangements when I first left the island-I had the money at the time; I could have done it.

I went back to visit my family with Charles right after my mom took over Lucero. He was grossly overweight, to the point where I had to ride him bareback because none of my saddles fit him, much less his girth. I had a fit-I knew he could develop insulin resistance and laminitis from being so fat, and I had a talk with the stable hand that since Lucero wasn't being ridden 5 days a week anymore, he needed to halve his grain ration.

Cantering up the gravel driveway to the barn, bareback, during our first visit back to the island. One of my favorite photos of us. I had this pic on my desk when I worked at the tack shop.

We had been caught by rain. He looked so happy!

My beautiful boy. He was overweight and his feet were long, but he was still beautiful, and always will be.

We had a psychic connection, I swear. Whenever something was wrong at the barn, I would dream about him and let my mom know, who would go check on him to make sure that everything was in order-his stall was clean and he was being fed properly.

Charles and I had the opportunity to visit again a year after that, and Lucero was at a much healthier weight, and happy. He was enjoying his retirement. Granted this barn is not what we're used to here in the States-turnout was limited to a couple of times a week, but it was in a paddock with super tall, lush green grass. He lived in a broodmare stall, a good 20x14 in size, with rubber mats over the concrete floor, and windows on 3 sides of his stall. That visit was short, and I was only able to ride him once or twice, which for some reason I barely remember.

I do remember my good-bye, right before leaving for the airport. He seemed subdued, as if he knew something I didn't, and barely wiggled his lips when I played with his nose. I couldn't wrench myself from him-I hugged him repeatedly and cried into his mane. He used to never let me hug him, but this time he did. Something motivated Charles to take photos of the moment, and I'm really glad now that he did. I got into the car that day, bawling, and I told Charles, out loud because I hoped that by saying it, it wouldn't be true, "I feel like this is the last time I'll ever see him." I get separation anxiety from every living thing that I love, a by-product of my parents' traumatic divorce, so I chalked this feeling up to that.

Our last good-bye

I never imagined I would be right.

It's been 5 years. 5 years have flown by since I last saw him...we had not been able to go back to the island due to a combination of lack of simultaneous vacation time for Charles and me between school and changing jobs, or a lack of money when we did have coinciding time off-it just never seemed to work out. I hadn't even dreamt about Lucero in all of this time, so I figured he'd been fine. The barn changed ownership, and grew-more stalls were added, but Lucero remained in his huge broodmare stall long after all the other broodmare stalls were split in two. My mom would stop by to visit him, but there was a period where she was a couple of months without seeing him-life just got in the way for her. I know it happens.

In March of this year she went to visit him after that long hiatus, and this is what she found.

He'd lost weight, and all of his muscle. All that hay on the floor? What he wasn't eating.

One flared hoof. All of his feet were long, and they had supposedly just been trimmed. I still think he had laminitis but no one recognized it because no one knew enough to see it.

He had not been turned out in months, if not for the last year. It had been so long that he refused to leave his stall, and he was monumentally stiff. His legs were stocked up, he was lame in his left hind, his hooves uneven, even though the farrier had just come-my mom had paid him! He was only being fed once a day. When did the feeding schedule change at the barn?? The horses had always been fed twice a day prior...apparently this had happened during the last year or two. All that time, my baby had been starving, and what he was being fed, he was refusing to eat. Unlike before, he never let me know. I was distraught. I think he forgot about me, or thought I abandoned him that last time I said good-bye.

 The vet came out and bloodwork revealed, surprisingly, only arthritis-nothing else. All of his organs were functioning fine. We did a major diet overhaul, my mom scoured the island for better quality hay and came back with timothy for which she had to pay $25 a bale. I sent joint supplements, SmartOmega3, SmartBreathe (his heaves was out of control again), and small hole haynets so he'd always have food in front of him. His grain ration, a 14% protein pellet, was cut in half, his hay ration was tripled, and he was also started on a wheat germ oil/soy oil blend-in PR, there is no access to all of the wonderful oil supplements for horses we take for granted here in the States.

I wanted to jump on a plane to go see him, but the tickets were prohibitive at the time (March is still the high season for travel to PR), and though Charles insisted I go, I decided to wait. My mom and I had discussed euthanasia if Lucero didn't improve, and I wanted to save the money for when the time came if the trial period didn't work, so I could say good-bye.

I wish I'd gone back then.

He gained weight in the right places, his heaves improved, and found the desire in himself to want to leave his stall again, to eat grass, to move around, even though the lameness persisted. He flirted with the mares again, and gave my mom a hard time, sometimes not wanting to go back to his stall unless she tempted him with bananas. My mom found the time to go see him every single day to make sure his stall was being cleaned, the supplements were being fed, the haynets were being filled. My mom went above and beyond to make sure he was happy, even though it broke her heart to not be able to provide him what I could have if he'd been with me.

It broke my heart too, and it wracked me with guilt.

For the last 5 months, Lucero had stayed even-keeled in his improvement. A couple of days of rainy weather meant a couple of days locked in his stall, in which his legs would stock up again and he would become stiff again. His heaves improved and even disappeared, but as soon as another bout of African sands came over the island, it would worsen again.

Apparently at the beginning of August, the supplements stopped working and he started to decline again. My mom was still going out to visit him, not every day now due to her multiple jobs, but still several times a week. She told me about the occassional swollen legs, about the on & off heaves, but she never told me that he'd stopped wanting to come out of his stall, that he again lost the spark in his eyes, that he didn't want his bananas anymore. She didn't tell me she had made an appointment with the vet to stop his suffering.

She told me the day after. She thought Lucero would say good-bye. I was sleeping after an overnight relief shift when he passed.

He did not say good-bye.

I didn't know he was gone until my mom told me. I am thankful for every single hour and every penny that she put in trying to save him, but I wish I had been given the chance of being there. Not just to say good-bye to him, but also to be there for my mom. Lucero was the last living legacy of my grandfather's, my mother's dad.

I'm just...destroyed. I'm wracked with guilt because I didn't go see him before. I didn't get to say good-bye. I didn't get to say I'm sorry. I didn't get to tell Lucero one last time that I loved him; that I didn't abandon him. And now I never will.

Words do not suffice to explain how I feel right now. It's hard to get through the day, though Lily and Charles help. I'm not right, and I don't know if I ever will be. It's just...hard.

I love you, Lucero. You were my very own personal sun.

Please forgive me.

.

Paso Fino adventure

I discovered Lily's back was sore, which is why I think she bucked during that last ride when asking for the right lead canter. I had stopped riding her in my dressage saddle because I could tell she was not comfortable in it-she has a really hard time relaxing in it and working long & low. Plus I knew the fit was mediocre at best-it was fitted to my previous horse, who was a warmblood/TB cross with mutton withers. After Lily was given to me, I had purchased a Wintec All Purpose 500 for next to nothing, and lucked out in that the tree wasn't broken. It fit Lily a little better, but not perfectly, and I think it was making her uncomfortable when riding. Her back had definetely sore.

*sigh*

This will be the 4th time I have to buy a new saddle in a 2 year period. It SUCKS!! But I can't expect her to work properly when I'm riding her and asking her to engage in a piece of equipment that hurts her. Some people do this consciously, and some people just don't know any better. Some horses will develop bad habits from an ill-fitting saddle (spooking, bolting, bucking), while others will stoickally bear it to the point where they end up with terrible chronic issues in their backs like being cold-backed or developing kissing spines. But I do know better, and Lily has been telling me she's sore more and more - popping her head up when I put the saddle (gently) on her back, turning her head to give me a dirty look and wrinkling her nose when I'm tightening the girth. The bucking was not spunk; I knew it was a pain reaction and she confirmed it when I took off the saddle afterwards and put gentle pressure on her back in the area under the saddle, and she flinched. :( I've worked out like a fiend in inadequate equipment (I almost tore an Achilles tendon one time when I continued to run in shoes that were not suited to the way I ran), so I know how it feels. I can't expect her to work properly when she hurts.

I've been considering one of these saddles, even though it's not legal for dressage competition:

It is a Ludomar Ronda. It is a Spanish saddle, the kind that is used on Andalusians and Iberian horses. (Hey, Lily is supposed to be an Iberian horse, right?) These saddles are a wonder to ride in, automatically placing you in the correct position, and they have a flexible tree to allow the horse to use their back and move their shoulders freely. My one concern is that, being made for the rounder Spanish breeds, it will sit too low Lily's withers, even with a regular tree. A sales rep for these saddles is going to be in South FL in 2 weeks, so I'll get to try this one and a couple of other Ludomar models to see if they fit her before trying to come up with money for yet another saddle. Of course, I would sell both my dressage saddle and the Wintec, since they don't fit her. So far I've been able to recover all the money I've spent on each saddle when I've sold it, but it's still a MAJOR pain in the ass to have to cough up the money initially.

For now, I tried Judy's Wintec Pro on Lily. I expected it to fit her the same as my All Purpose, but the fit in the Dressage Pro is actually very different, and she seemed a LOT happier in it than in my Wintec. She even has adequate (2 fingers) wither clearance in it! She worked long and low for me yesterday with barely a complaint. After every canter-trot and canter-walk transition, she would automatically drop her head to stretch her topline. Thanks to this, we did some nice stretchy trot several times during our workout, and her trot was so much better in general-no pogo-stickiness nor "inverting" of her topline. She worked in a long hunter frame for pretty much our entire session, which is a considerable improvement from how she worked before. I cooled her out for 10 minutes, during which she carried her nose almost to the ground the entire time in a prolonged stretch, power walking in a wonderful gait where she was driving from behind to the point where I could FEEL her overtracking. I've noticed her body is changing, too. She has filled out behind her shoulder blades, her withers are less prominent, her lumbar back is rounder, as is her croup-she is getting some really nice muscle development overall.

This is a very bad conformation shot, as she is not standing square and the ground is uneven, so Lily appears to be downhill in build. She is actually pretty level. However, the ground by the fence where her front feet are is at a slant from where her hind feet are placed. But at least you can see how her body is starting to change-she's filling out quite nicely, and the shape of her neck, back and hind end are rounder with new muscle.

There is another show on January 22nd, but I think I might sit this one out. I would like her to be doing better consistently before moving up to Training Level like Judy wants me to. They have some really push-button horses at those Parkland dressage shows, and it was frustrating last time to be second to those horses when you could tell the rider wasn't doing anything to keep them that way and the judge favored them anyway. Grrrrrrr! I swear the horses had even memorized the tests!

After feeding lunch to the horses, Judy, Sarah and I took off for Homestead to look at Paso Finos. This is a long story.

A few years ago, Judy had to have back surgery (hemilaminectomy) after being attacked by a stallion on 2 separate occassions. On any given day, her back will hurt while riding Rose, despite her being so comfortable to ride, because of the impact of the trot and canter. Judy has also started developing arthritis in her knees, and they have been bothering her so much when she rides that it will take her a minute to be able to walk off after dismounting. Sarah owns a "Trote-Galope" Colombian Paso. Trote-galope = trot-gallop. These horses are technically gaited, but their gait consists of a very smooth trot and canter where 3 feet are always on the ground. They can collect and lengthen like a Spanish horse, except they have more knee, hock and fetlock action. Very flashy, while still being very smooth. Sarah boards her horse, Romeo, at Judy's old barn across the street, and often comes over to hang out with us on Romeo; we've all gone on trail rides together. Sarah has been trying to convince Judy to purchase a Paso to allow her to continue riding, particularly a Trote-Galope so she could still do some variant of dressage, and she had made arrangements with her farrier, who lives in Kendall and has 3 horses in Homestead, to go with Judy to look at a couple of horses for sale last weekend. I was invited to come along, and I went, since I had not ridden a Paso in 2 years and was itching to ride one again.

I do have a second horse, and he is a Puertorrican Paso, but he is back on the island. He was bred to be an Andadura Horse, but he is a very good quality one, with Paso Fino bloodlines, so he can be collected into a paso corto and paso largo, though he lacks the cherished fino gait. His name is Lucero, which means "star". My grandfather gave him to me as a weanling for me to raise and train myself. He was the first horse I ever trained, and he pretty much taught me how to train horses. I love him; we trusted each other completely, and he played along without complaining with anything I wanted to do (including galloping down a stream bed, water splashing in giant curtains behind us with our speed; endless bareback rides; hiking my stirrups up as high as they would go and pretending I was a jockey with my knees on his withers, while he ambled along in a paso largo up and down the hill that was our property *lol*; and popping over 2-foot jumps). He turns 19 this April and I do miss him; I often wish I could bring him to FL, but the flight to bring him costs a good $3000 plus all the blood testing you have to do to import them. He's never even been on a trailer, and though he's a laid back little guy, I'm afraid of what the stress of a plane flight would do to him. I would consider shipping him by boat, but have not been able to find a company that would ship a horse by sea from PR to FL.

Here Lucero is demonstrating his paso largo gait. This is a really old picture-he was 7 years old at the time.

At his barn in PR. This photo was taken 5 years ago on a visit to the island. He was so fat! They had continued feeding him as if I were riding him 5 times a week. They got a stern talking-to at the barn, and his grain was cut back considerably. Pasos are easy keepers and are prone to laminitis if overfed. He now looks the way he did when I lived in PR.

Galloping up the barn driveway bareback-it wasn't often that he'd do this

We got caught  rain in the rain for this one; we were both drenched!

I miss him.

The drive to Homestead was about an hour and a half. I was glad I didn't ask where we were going beforehand (I hate going within 15 miles of Miami-I went to tech school there, braving 2-hour traffic jams on what should've been a 30 minute drive, 4 days a week for 2 years. I'm still not over it.), or I probably would've never gone, and would have missed out on an awesome day.

We met Cindy's farrier, Edmundo, at his barn in the Redlands. It reminded me of the barn where I keep Lucero at in PR. Edmundo showed us a little 20 month old filly he's training. A very nervous little red dun thing, with a dished face and big doe eyes that reminded me of Lily's.  Edmundo is training her, and it will still be another year before she is ridden. The next horse he showed us was Rosa Linda, a gorgeous dark bay that he raised from a baby. She is now 8 years old. Rosa Linda is a trot-gallop mare. He demonstrated her gaits first in Bellas Formas (the equivalent of long-lining):

He then tacked her up and rode her so we could watch:

Performing a tight turn in the barn yard

Very collected canter down the Fino board



We then each got to try her out. Sarah rode her very well and really got her going. Judy was able to get her collected trot and canter.

Judy performing a more extended trot on Rosa Linda

Judy and Rosa demonstrate the canter or "galope"

Edmundo came over to talk to me while we were watching Judy ride, and that's when he discovered I'm Puertorrican and have ridden Pasos. Then it was my turn. Rosa was lovely to ride, but a new sensation, as I'm used to the super-smooth ride of Paso Finos. Right off the bat, I was able to get her into her super-collected canter, where she was going at the speed of a walk, but with the rhythm of a very comfortable canter. I slowed her further into a collected trot, then put her through her paces. She was incredibly sensitive: if I made my body rigid, she collected like a spring, and if I relaxed and lowered my hands, her gaits extended. I had a blast taking her around the arena and down the Fino board.

Me on Rosa Linda, trotting

An extremely collected canter! Yes, I had a goofy smile on my face :)

Trot down the Fino board. Look at that fetlock action!

When I got off, Edmundo praised me on how well I had ridden Rosa; he was impressed. I explained I had learned to ride on Paso Finos as a kid, and my first horse was a Puertorrican Paso. He told me he was going to bring out a Paso Fino he owns for us to ride, but he warned me, with a wink, that he wasn't selling him. 

The Paso Fino was a gorgeous black stallion named Carabali, whose only white marking was the star on his forehead. Edmundo got on him outside, and rode him up and down the aisle in front of the barn so we could hear the rhythm of his steps, turning him tightly (it was a perfect turn on the haunches) in the corner, and bringing back down the concrete aisle.

Carabali performs the Fino gait down the barn aisle

Carabali got riled up at one point but Edmundo corrected him, and what started out as a half-rear ended up an astounding levade. Judy's and my jaw dropped. "Wooow..." we breathed in unison. Edmundo then took him over to this fabulous covered round pen, and briefly rode the stallion around so we could see his gaits. Then I was up. Carabali was even more sensitive than Rosa, to the point where a series of half-halts with my seat would collect him almost into a piaffe, where his legs were still moving just as quickly in his Fino gait, but there was barely any forward movement. Edmundo explained the different Paso Fino gaits: Paso Fino (a highly refined, collected gait with rapid footfalls and very little forward progression, where 3 feet are always on the ground), Paso Corto (slightly more extended gait, at a speed similar to a Western jog), Paso Largo (smooth lateral gait), and Trocha. In the case of Colombian Pasos, it is basically a very smooth trot at the speed of a canter, and similar in feel to the fox trot, and they can reach speeds up to 35 mph. In Paso Fino competition, it is penalized, but there are some Colombian Pasos bred specifically for their Trocha. Instead of the Trocha, Puertorrican Pasos have a lateral gait similar to a Standardbred's pace called Andadura, in which they can reach speeds up to 40 mph. Andadura races are held in Puerto Rico.

My horse, Lucero, was bred to be an Andadura horse, for racing. He doesn't even have a trace of any gait resembling a trot, and does not like to canter. Instead, he can do his Andadura forever when asked to pick up speed. Anything resembling a trot is unheard of in the pure Puertorrican Paso Fino, and is undesirable-a Paso Fino that trots is not considered show quality. The original Paso Fino breed comes from Puerto Rico, and is a cross of Andalusian, Spanish Jennet, and Barb, created over a span of 500 years. The mix that turned into the Paso Fino started in the time of the Spanish conquistadors. These were originally bred to be comfortable horses that could go all day long with tremendous endurance, to allow hacendados (plantation owners) to check fence lines. The unique gaits developed as an adaptation to the mountainous terrain of the island. The Puertorrican Paso is small, around 13 hands, with a refined, rounded body that reminds you more of a Spanish breed than anything resembling a pony. The Colombian Paso is considered a different strain, and it was created in Colombia in the 1950's (very recent in comparison to the original Paso Fino) and is now the most popular strain in the States. The Colombian Paso is a larger horse (around 14 hands, sometimes reaching 15 hands on rare occassions) due to outbreeding with Morgans and more Andalusians. This is also the reason why the Colombian Paso retains a form of trot in the Trocha, and why you have Colombian Pasos with no "special" gaits at all: the Trote-Galopes. In Paso circles back on the island, there is constant debate over which horse is better, the Colombian Paso or the Puertorrican Paso, with individuals defending one strain or another with the passion used to defend a political party or religion! The fact that the Trote-Galopes don't have special gaits explains why their divisions at shows are usually the last class on the last day of the show: they are frowned upon pretty much everywhere except in Colombia, because by all purist breed standards, a Trote-Galope has ceased to be a Paso. In Colombia, they are considered work horses like Quarter Horses, and were originally developed to work cattle. Trote-Galopes will have roached manes because it prevented that long thick mane from getting tangled in the brush. It is cool that these horses are being recognized and considered special, because they still are. The pleasure calibre Pasos have also found a place at shows-they are easier to handle, having less brio, with less flashy gaits, but are still wonderful to ride, and it is nice to see them get some appreciation too.

Back to the barn: While Edmundo explained each gait, I demonstrated them on the stallion. He was sooo cool to ride! I kept going around and around on him, until Sarah and Judy complained that they wanted a turn too. I have ridden, trained and broken to ride many Paso Finos, but I had never ridden a show-quality one.

For those of you not familiar with the Paso Fino breed, this Wikepedia link explains the breed, its history, qualities, different types (Paso Fino, Trocha Horse, and Trote-Galope), and different gaits very clearly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paso_Fino

Here is a video of a Paso Fino competition, where you can see the Fino gait and listen to the correct sound of the footfalls:

Compare to this video featuring a Trote-Galope gelding class at a show in Colombia:

The rhythm of the Trote gait appears the same as the Fino, but if you pay close attention, you will see that there is more forward movement in the Trote, and the footfall is diagonal with a 2-beat sound, just like in a regular trot, while the Fino gait is a 4-beat gait with individual footfalls. In this video you can also see the galope gait, which looks and sounds like a very collected canter, as seen in the photos above.

I wish I had gotten a picture of Judy's face when she rode Carabali. She was smiling from ear to ear like a little kid in a candy store. I have never seen her so happy on a horse, and I pointed it out to her. She hadn't even noticed she was grinning. Then it was Sarah's turn. She liked Carabali, but prefers the Trote-Galope horses.

After Edmundo had bathed and put away both horses, he took us to a different nearby barn, where a gray stallion named Cantinero was for sale. Cantinero is a fuera de concurso (out of competition) Trote-Galope horse who won a recent World Championship here in FL. In the Paso world, for a horse to be declared "fuera de concurso", they must have won a minimum of 12 competitions, and it is a coveted title. This horse was originally being sold for $60,000 but when they couldn't get that price out of him, they had reduced it to $25,000.

The horse looked like a petite Andalusian. To a non-horse person, he didn't seem like much: he was small at about 13.2 hands; a stocky, round gray horse turned white. Upon a closer look, however, he had terrific bone on his legs, an uphill build, the short back and powerful hind end of a classic Spanish horse, and a stallion's crested neck, shown off by his roached mane and extra-long dark gray forelock that hung the length of his face. He was very calm out of the stall, not jumpy/skittish like the typical Paso, and stood quietly while Edmundo tacked him up. He didn't even act like a stallion when handled from the ground-he looked like a broke-to-death gelding as he stood calmly at the crossties, untied. Edmundo warned us that he had never ridden this horse before, and he didn't have his bridle with him, as it was being used by the caretaker on another horse out on a trail ride.

Edmundo swung up on Cantinero. The horse suddenly changed, arching his neck proudly and standing at attention for a fraction of a second. It was like he grew before our eyes-this horse had PRESENCE. Edmundo sent him into a trote down the barn aisle, and Cantinero obeyed in a gait that was almost a prance, lifting his knees up to his chest and collecting his hind legs so far under himself that his feet were falling even with his girth! His front end rose almost 2 hands, he could engage his hind end so much! His galope was the same, and Cantinero demonstrated what turned almost into a canter piaffe going back down the barn aisle. His shod hooves slammed on the concrete aisle with the force of a Clydesdale's. If he'd been on natural footing, he would have been carving giant holes in the ground with each step. This horse's athletic capacity and strength was astounding.

Edmundo took the stallion out into the field by the barn parking lot, but Cantinero threw up his head, his front legs churning giant windmills in the air, his hind legs tearing up the earth. Edmundo's expression became one of fear, and he immediately swung the horse back into the barn, cantered him down the aisle, turned him around, and brought him to a stop by aiming him at his stall door. Edmundo quickly got off, brought Cantinero back to the crossties, and untacked him. "THAT was scary." he says. "It takes a lot to make me want to get off a horse, but I thought this one was going to kill me!" He apologized profusely, but Cantinero had snatched the bit and tried to run away with Edmundo. Edmundo had managed him so well that it had just looked like high spirits on the horse's part. For our safety, he wouldn't let us ride him without the stallion's own bit.

Afterwards, we tracked down the trail riders and Cantinero's caretaker. We found them taking a break at a patch of grass between the road and an enormous orange grove.The caretaker was a young Colombian guy riding a gorgeous bay horse, another Trote-Galope stallion (in case you haven't noticed a trend here, yet: these horses are not commonly gelded; they are much more valuable as stallions. It also preserves their spirit or "brio". However, when trained correctly, the fact that they are not castrated makes no difference in their handling) who was also for sale. We took turns riding the horse, who was quite spirited and had been ridden in such a way that he was difficult to stop & slow down. You had to pull alternately on the reins to bring him to a halt. He was the roughest ride of all the horses we rode that day, but he was Sarah's favorite. They were asking $12,000 for him. He made me nervous, though-he could pick up a lot of speed, very quickly, and we were riding right next to the road at dusk.

After that, we drove with Edmundo to a winery that was out in the middle of nowhere (literally in the middle of nowhere-there was nothing else in sight other than flat fields and sky for miles on end). It was obviously the only hangout in the area, because it was packed full. The winery sold local Floridian wines. We were going to sign up for a wine tasting and food, but when we reached the register, we almost fainted when we were told the price for one person. All 4 of us turned around and went back outside. The trail riders were arriving at the winery parking lot at this time (this was their final destination) and were all riding in the parking lot. Edmundo spoke to a couple of them, Sarah rode the bay stallion one more time, and then we said our good-byes. We were starving! Edmundo took us to a local BBQ place for dinner. It was a small little restaurant on the corner of an intersection, also surrounded by crop fields, where almost everyone spoke Spanish, but the food was very good. Edmundo footed the bill for all of us, despite our protests. Judy and I had been talking all along about using him as the new barn farrier, but that just did it for us. He was hired; he was very sweet, quiet and personable, and very gentle with the horses. We left Homestead at 8:30 pm for the long drive back home.

So that was our Paso adventure last weekend. We had been placing bets on which horses Judy would like best-the Paso Finos or the Trote Galopes, and I won when she declared that her favorite horse had been Carabali, the black Paso Fino stallion. :)