No diagonal gait has any moment of single foot support.
If it’s ‘singlefooting’ it’s not foxtrotting and if it’s foxtrotting it’s not ‘singlefooting’.
This new “breed” either does a singlefoot gait OR it does a diagonal gait.
[QUOTE=gaitedincali;5980461]
No diagonal gait has any moment of single foot support.
If it’s ‘singlefooting’ it’s not foxtrotting and if it’s foxtrotting it’s not ‘singlefooting’.
This new “breed” either does a singlefoot gait OR it does a diagonal gait.[/QUOTE]
I never say “never” and always avoid the word “always.” :lol:
Since gait exists on continuum, both lateral and diagona, a single moment of support is possible. I’ve seen (and ridden) some Marchadors that don’t have a pure moment of triple support but may have only one or two. This not a correct marcha batida but was clearly a diagonal singlefoot.
G.
For someone unfamiliar with gaited horses you rather quickly discovered an uncommon, but legitimate breed (the MMs) on your quest to legitimize a made up breed (the ASF). That’s just a little odd when what you should be buddying up with…is a dang rackin’ horse.
Look, someone’s got 'em racking horse and decided to collect some money. Hey y’all, let’s make us a registry! I think Tamara really nailed it- that’s a Rocky color who must be owned by someone who don’t like them folks at the RMH registry.
He is correct about the Marchadors. and I think that the Icelandics have a single support foot but I don’t know for sure.
Tamara
[QUOTE=katarine;5980837]
For someone unfamiliar with gaited horses you rather quickly discovered an uncommon, but legitimate breed (the MMs) on your quest to legitimize a made up breed (the ASF). That’s just a little odd when what you should be buddying up with…is a dang rackin’ horse.
Look, someone’s got 'em racking horse and decided to collect some money. Hey y’all, let’s make us a registry! I think Tamara really nailed it- that’s a Rocky color who must be owned by someone who don’t like them folks at the RMH registry.[/QUOTE]
Exactly. 
[QUOTE=katarine;5980837]
For someone unfamiliar with gaited horses you rather quickly discovered an uncommon, but legitimate breed (the MMs) on your quest to legitimize a made up breed (the ASF). That’s just a little odd when what you should be buddying up with…is a dang rackin’ horse.
Look, someone’s got 'em racking horse and decided to collect some money. Hey y’all, let’s make us a registry! I think Tamara really nailed it- that’s a Rocky color who must be owned by someone who don’t like them folks at the RMH registry.[/QUOTE]
Whose trying to “legitimize” anything? 
I looked up “Diagonal gaits” for horses, and it mentioned several breeds that also did diagonal gaits, namely the Fox-Trotter and the “MMs”.
I asked about a breed because I hadn’t heard of it before. I hadn’t heard of “MMs” either. How in the world is it ‘odd’ to be able to use Wiki?
This is the page I used right here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambling#Diagonal_ambling_gaits
There’s where I found the breeds/gaits. No need to act as if I have some “motive”. I don’t. I don’t own a horse of any breed at the moment, and when I ride, it’s usually on a nice ‘ordinary’ Paint Horse.
I am not acting like you have a motive, you keep asserting that and no one’s done such a thing or best I can tell…thought such a thing. Myself and Tamara said right off the bat that he’s a racker/a Rocky and you blew past that on your way to aligning this breed with a a very uncommon S American breed.
Umm…Why ask if you are going to both ignore what you are told by two folks who know gaited horses… and turn to Wikipedia for the definitive answer?
I’m not accusing you of anything like having a motive. I just don’t understanding blowing of the answers you asked for, and got.
I’m not aggravated or annoyed or accusing- I just don’t understand your purpose. Color me confused, I’ll live, and so will you 
I’m not linking them to any breed. I was actually trying to find a video of the gait they were talking about.
All the reading I did said that Rockies and Racking Horses do a LATERAL gait, not a DIAGONAL. So I used Wiki to look up Diagonal gaits.
When I asked if Racks were also lateral, I got a remark “well, they never said don’t call it a rack”, which really didn’t answer the question.
All I got was responses of “its a mutt”, which is fine. I was interested in the GAIT, not the breed and never got anything other than people making fun of whatever the person called their horse. I was looking for a video of the particular gait to see what it looked like.
Far as I can tell, most gaited breeds move in a similar fashion. So, color me foolish for trying to find information on diagonal gaits instead of just accepting people making insulting remarks about the horse’s pedigree. I am not promoting the horse or its breed so demeaning retorts about if it is or isn’t a Rocky or whatever isn’t very helpful. I was curious what the particular gait they were talking about. I got no help with that, only people saying it’s “just a this”, which it may be. I have no idea. I didn’t even argue. I asked for some information about the particular gait, nothing more. Neither of you said anything related to the gait, only insulted the registry and the horse in question. Again, your choice, I’m not defending either of them, but insulting that doesn’t help me figure out the difference between a lateral gait or a diagonal gait in terms of finding a video of this “broken trot” they are talking about.
[QUOTE=gaitedincali;5980461]
No diagonal gait has any moment of single foot support.
If it’s ‘singlefooting’ it’s not foxtrotting and if it’s foxtrotting it’s not ‘singlefooting’.
This new “breed” either does a singlefoot gait OR it does a diagonal gait.[/QUOTE]
Hence my confusion and trying to find information about the particular gait. I was simply trying to find a video of it, and the closest parallels I could find were the breeds I mentioned.
I’m not sure how it turned into me trying to “legitimize” anything.:rolleyes: I was just curious if there was another name for this “broken trot” and if I could find a video to see what it looked like.
most gaited breeds have individuals that are trotty or swingy (pacey) I know Tennessee Walkers that trot, and Foxtrotters that pace, and many easily go back and forth between the two on one circuit of the arena (eek!) Now we have tons of ridiculous new registries popping up–“National Gaited Endurance Horse” and the like, someone’s always thinking they can do it bigger/better, so let’s cross some TWH with some Standardbred and throw in some paso fino and maybe a speed racker and see what happens! A nifty website, a cool registration certificate to any gaited mystery mutt out there, whee-heeee!
I’ve been to a couple of the “speed racking” trail rides at places like East Fork Stables - which I think were at some point organized by SHOBA and other single-footed horse groups.
However, they ended up getting overrun by the guys on standardbreds who basically just flew down the track at a pace. . .all about speed, not gait.
There was one adorable little stud horse in the group, though, that I managed to catch on video with my rather crappy cell phone. He was recognized as a “true” single-footer by SHOBA. Not sure if that means anything or not, but here he is. . .apologies in advance for the shoddy video
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1278641815260&saved
I’m sorry you’re ill with me but I’ve not got a clue what the ‘breed’ supposedly does and I bet you they don’t either. They said with words what they do…but any ‘breed’ that cannot be bothered to show you, even in a set of still photos, the signature gait…is somebody’s made up malarky.
You have to be super careful, and super suspicious, of gaited horse ‘breeds’. many of them are just recently made up concoctions, and this one doesn’t pass my sniff test of legitimacy all on it’s own, that has nothing to do with you. You are from the trotting horse side of the spectrum, where a horse is born and it gets up and it…walks, trots, canters, and gallops. Gaited horses? It’s not nearly so simple in the racking/running walk/foxtrotting end of the world. I assure you that you cannot fathom how the gaited world has some really low end, low rate, lying folks who will pass of ANYTHING as ANYTHING…if they can get away with it. It’s honestly got a seriously backwoods streak that will create a breed if they have to in order to create a market and feed a need they created. My snark is aimed at this silly made up breed, not at you.
I live near Asheville, NC, and out on the airport road there used to be a farm sign that said “Home of the Appalachian Single Footed Horse.” I was interested in gaited breeds so called the phone number and was told by an elderly lady that her husband had developed the breed but had since died and the breed standards were being taken over by a lady near Charleston, SC, who had bought some horses from her husband. (My call would have been between 2002 & 2005.) I actually talked to the Charleston woman once about what they were doing - my un-registered QH mare (from Texas) who had a mysterious and lovely little gait in addition to WTC could have been bred to an ASF stud, the resulting foal checked for gait and potentially registered as ASF - in other words very open registry at the time! I was only interested in potential riding horse and I can tell you as a “rare breed” they were very pricey… Don’t know if the woman is still in Charleston area or still involved but if OP is interested in pursuing, she could start there.
Maybe Appalachia is becoming chic. I remember about choking back in college (early 70s) when two very earnest (and well-off) twins from New Jersy whose family had relocated to the Washington DC suburb of Harper’s Ferry WV told me very sweetly how in touch with their Appalachian roots they were.
Me, I’m a coal miner’s granddaughter whose mother was born in the Cannelton Mine’s number 9 coal camp up the road a piece from Smithers WV. Born and raised in the Mountain State.
When I was a horse crazy teenager my first mount was a very drafty pony that could be induced to singlefoot. Most of the equines in the hills had some variation on an easy gait. It was easy enough to assess gaitedness–find a reasonably straight stretch of sloping dirt road, aim pony downhill, hold his head up, encourage forward speed. Most would rack, singlefoot, or at least amble.
Forty plus years later, I live in GA, a state that includes part of the Appalachian chain, as does durn near every state in the Southeast. My grade aka mutt TWH trots and cannot for the life of him do a singlefoot or rack or stepping pace or anything more lateral than a running walk. He’d just about rather trot than eat when he’s hungry, but he can and does do a flat walk and a running walk and some weird little gait that’s not quite a fox trot.
My grade aka mutt Racking horse can do every gait known to horsedom except foxtrot and also has some entertaing mixed gaits. There is no way of predicting with her whether she’s going to want to show-walk, amble, pace, rack, fino-fino, speedrack or some oddball combination of any two. She can dog walk, trot, and canter just fine, but she likes to mix another gait in with the canter. So, on that basis, she would be registerable as an Appalachian Singlefoot Horse and the gelding wouldnt.
My gaited horses are in fact miserable examples of their alleged breeds but durn, they are fun to ride…
There is an author out there by the name of Lee Zeigler (correct me if I’m wrong guys) who has put out a book on gaited horses and I believe it describes the various gaits and their footfall patterns.
You can google around or go on Youtube and see the rack, speed racking, running walk and a few others courtesy of the breed associations. but really, there just isn’t an engineering diagram that describes each and every gait, there is a lot of very canny marketing going on to differentiate one “type” of gaited horse from the other and claims made as to the uniqueness of this particular gait vs that particular gait.
I’ve listed elsewhere about five different “breed” associations active here in KY, all of which claim to be “different” somehow but still allow cross registration, and there is always a new one popping up as the breed “du jour”. It’s all marketing.
I’ve not heard of the Appalachian Singlefoot horses, but then I’m not a gaited horse person. You might look up either Kentucky Mountain Horses or Rocky Mountain Horses as both of those are single-footing breeds. I think one of those two had an explanation of what the gait was and how it should ‘sound’ when the horse is gaiting. I first saw a Rocky Mountain Horse at a horse expo in Denver in the early 90s and the owner actually had a tape that played the correct ‘sound’ of that gait when the horse was gaiting on a hard surface.
The best I can explain it now is that it is a slightly ‘syncopated’ 1-2-3-4 sound, slightly ‘quicker’ between 1 & 2 and 3 & 4.
Thank you all for the help and the information.
As said, I’m aware this is not the “next big thing” and honestly, I’m not sure how well promoted they are. I can only find a few sources of information on them.
Still, I was curious about the gait. I will do some looking into Rockies and Fox-Trotters as it sounds like they are somewhat similar.
I was also wondering if maybe it was something like gaited Morgans (in terms of the gait). I will continue to do some research and see what I can find.
Thank you all again.
Appalachian singlefoots were developed by Dr. J.G. Betts in the early 1980’s near Asheville, NC. At the time, he was breeding for a “type” with a smooth gait that was NOT a rack, but had a very distinctive foot pattern. This is what it was described as:
The Gait:
The diagonal gait is defined as a “broken trot.” The horse breaks up the two-beat trot into the evenly cadenced four-beat diagonal Single foot in which one foot is always pressed squarely on the ground. The other three follow in a touchdown, airborne, and lift-off sequence to complete the evenly timed four-beat stride (one-two-three-four.) The action comes from the pull in the front and the push in the rear to smoothly move the horse forward with little effort and ensure proper equilibrium allowing the horse to move extremely sure-footed. There is no side to side sway as in the lateral gait and no up and down movement as in the trot. The hoofs are carried close to the ground; there is no exaggerated leg elevation, and no outward or inward swing. When the rider is seated correctly at the horse’s center of gravity, there is no energy-expended lifting the rider’s weight up and down. The horses are line gaited and cap their tracks - leaving “two tracks in the sand.” The gait should not be confused with the lateral Single foot (broken-pace or stepping pace) as seen in the lateral breeds.
I remember Dr. Betts tried to set a pretty high standard at the time as to gaitedness etc, and for at least awhile, to be “registered” the offspring/horse in question had to be inspected as to it’s conformation and purity of “gait”.
I boarded at a barn that stood an ASF stallion for a number of years. Every one of his babies hit the ground gaiting. Characteristics were that they were smaller in size (14-15.2h), but sturdy, gaited, and had easy going temperaments. They made excellent trail/family horses. My BO sold several ASFs in the $1000-$3000 range.
At one time, the association did a number of shows, but two factions arose after Dr. Betts died, one that was promoting them as being reasonably priced, family horses, and another that was trying to sell them for much higher prices.
I may be wrong here, but from what I heard, eventually it seems like most everyone parted ways. My former BO still has one mare that is over 20yoa, but lost her stallion last year (he was 25?).
From what I understand, Dr. Betts was attempting to establish a breed, by breeding for and approving only certain characteristics (HE was quite particular in what he was looking for)…which he seemed to be achieving for a time. My former BO retired her stallion in his late teens, and left the association because of so much infighting and since Dr. Betts’ death, it seems like things have pretty much fallen apart.
So no, they are not an established breed like a Thoroughbred or Arabian, but more of a “type” with a particular gait.
While not a part of the ASF association anymore, I’m sure my former BO still knows some people associated with it, and since she once stood a ASF stallion, she could tell you more about the breed and it’s particular characteristics. If you’re interested in contacting her, PM me and I’ll try to connect you two.
Someone about 60 miles south of where I live sells them on CL. I always wondered what the heck they were. Aaaand, I still don’t know. But now I feel less stupid about my lack of knowledge.:yes:
[QUOTE=mtngirl;5986471]
Appalachian singlefoots were developed by Dr. J.G. Betts in the early 1980’s near Asheville, NC. At the time, he was breeding for a “type” with a smooth gait that was NOT a rack, but had a very distinctive foot pattern. This is what it was described as:
The Gait:
The diagonal gait is defined as a “broken trot.” The horse breaks up the two-beat trot into the evenly cadenced four-beat diagonal Single foot in which one foot is always pressed squarely on the ground. The other three follow in a touchdown, airborne, and lift-off sequence to complete the evenly timed four-beat stride (one-two-three-four.) The action comes from the pull in the front and the push in the rear to smoothly move the horse forward with little effort and ensure proper equilibrium allowing the horse to move extremely sure-footed. There is no side to side sway as in the lateral gait and no up and down movement as in the trot. The hoofs are carried close to the ground; there is no exaggerated leg elevation, and no outward or inward swing. When the rider is seated correctly at the horse’s center of gravity, there is no energy-expended lifting the rider’s weight up and down. The horses are line gaited and cap their tracks - leaving “two tracks in the sand.” The gait should not be confused with the lateral Single foot (broken-pace or stepping pace) as seen in the lateral breeds.
I remember Dr. Betts tried to set a pretty high standard at the time as to gaitedness etc, and for at least awhile, to be “registered” the offspring/horse in question had to be inspected as to it’s conformation and purity of “gait”.
I boarded at a barn that stood an ASF stallion for a number of years. Every one of his babies hit the ground gaiting. Characteristics were that they were smaller in size (14-15.2h), but sturdy, gaited, and had easy going temperaments. They made excellent trail/family horses. My BO sold several ASFs in the $1000-$3000 range.
At one time, the association did a number of shows, but two factions arose after Dr. Betts died, one that was promoting them as being reasonably priced, family horses, and another that was trying to sell them for much higher prices.
I may be wrong here, but from what I heard, eventually it seems like most everyone parted ways. My former BO still has one mare that is over 20yoa, but lost her stallion last year (he was 25?).
From what I understand, Dr. Betts was attempting to establish a breed, by breeding for and approving only certain characteristics (HE was quite particular in what he was looking for)…which he seemed to be achieving for a time. My former BO retired her stallion in his late teens, and left the association because of so much infighting and since Dr. Betts’ death, it seems like things have pretty much fallen apart.
So no, they are not an established breed like a Thoroughbred or Arabian, but more of a “type” with a particular gait.
While not a part of the ASF association anymore, I’m sure my former BO still knows some people associated with it, and since she once stood a ASF stallion, she could tell you more about the breed and it’s particular characteristics. If you’re interested in contacting her, PM me and I’ll try to connect you two.[/QUOTE]
Thank you! Sorry for taking so long to message back. I had a busy weekend.
It is very interesting to hear from someone with actual contact with the breed. I would love to get in contact with you BO and ask her some more information about the breed and the registry. I will send you a PM. Thank you again!
