1,000% agree. Buy the canter (and if you’re a dressage person, the walk). Trot can be improved and isn’t as integral for jumping disciplines.
Mare described in my post above had this ridiculous canter, felt like this stretchy bounceable ball.
2 Likes
Funny you say this - I was reading something somewhere else awhile back and they said the exact opposite lol.
This series by the one and only Jane Savoie is really good about improving qualities of the gaits.
Personally, and I suppose my former collective trainers, feel that most riders rather ignore the walk and often aren’t hugely skilled at improving canters. Many AA’s / non-professional riders spend a LOT of time at the trot (warm up, flat work, etc.) and by default are better at improving it due to volume of time spent at the gait. I observe a LOT of AA’s on the West Coast, very few walk with intention while mounted (contact, variation between paces and collection at the walk, walking exercises like haunches in/ out, etc.) and many ‘save’ their canter for courses/jumping.
http://www.cheval-haute-ecole.com/indexA30302.html
^ This article spends FOREVER discussing the minutiae of improving a walk. I don’t know many a rider that would spend this time and effort to improve their ‘least used’ gait.
Do you remember who said the opposite? I am so curious what discipline they’re from!
5 Likes
Oh I’m not sure where exactly - I think it was as I was falling down some kind of youtube rabbit hole lol, but it just stuck out to me since prior to hearing that I hadn’t really given a ton of thought to improving the quality of the gait itself (at least in those explicit terms - I had only really thought about it in the general sense of strengthening and developing rhythm, balance, etc.), or that when looking at a prospective horse to buy you might care more about one gait than the others as far as natural ability is concerned.
I seem to recall they were a dressage rider but I could be completely misremembering.
Both jumping and dressage trainers have advised me to buy the canter since it’s easier to improve the trot. Canter and walk often correlate. Canter is important for jumping because you jump from it and it becomes more important in dressage as you move through the levels.
5 Likes
In Ingrid Klimke’s book about training young horses, she really emphasized the walk as the most important gait for conditioning. I believe she even advised riding with headphones to listen to something while you ride so you can stay at the walk longer without getting bored and trying to make it more interesting for yourself.
5 Likes
I am going to add that your experience is also testament to how well track horses can be/are trained. It is too easy to dismiss OTTBs as “untrained.” No, many of them are very well trained by very good horsemen and women.
I am not surprised to see that. I get my horses off the track and never had an issue with them learning to jump easily and quickly.
3 Likes
I bought my current horse for his canter, and his temperament. He’s a green as grass just-turned 6 yo OTTB. He was taken off the track by an older adult amateur when he was coming 4. She toodled around with him, took him on some Hunter paces and hacked him around. He didn’t have a formal education as far as what contact and connection were.
I got on him and from the first moment he picked up the canter, I was hooked. So naturally balanced, with a lovely rhythm that he seems to settle into and maintain without a whole lot of effort. His previous owner had canter poles set up in her jump field and told me to trot him through them. I did, and he got his feet mixed up and tripped HARD. I thought he was going to go down on his knees. I got flung up on his neck, lost my stirrup, thought for sure I was going to eat dirt. Bless him, he stopped absolutely dead and didn’t move a muscle until I sat back up and collected myself. I would guess that most young horses wouldn’t be that forgiving. He could’ve said “screw you, see ya!” and dumped me, but he didn’t.
I haven’t done much jumping with him yet, but that rocking horse canter is going to make finding the jumps so simple as long as I don’t get in his way. He’s already shown that he has a natural tendency to switch his leads under saddle without being asked, so I’m hoping that auto changes will be an easy “button” to install for him.
3 Likes
I am a massive Ingrid fan-girl. She is an idol of mine! I agree with her, but I also extend it to all horses not just the young ones. I walk for 10 mins min to warm up and another 10+ to cool down (better if there is a hill to walk up and down)! I even do a walk only rides 1x a week if I am full leasing.
I work in a technical field and I usually think about work problems while walking - way better than doing it at a desk 
4 Likes
That’s a goal of mine this year - get the young one hacking out alone reliably without risking my life to do so. I love just going out for an hour + walk in the woods. Good for them, good for me, good for conditioning and them realizing not all saddle time is “hard” and on contact.
But the young one is oh-so-dumb. It’s too hard to coordinate with (fun to go with) people, so alone we will be.
I’ll wear my vest and pray.
2 Likes
I have found more often than not, the quality of walk and canter are on par with one another.
1 Like
Thank you telling Roany’s story so beautifully…I love Roany 
I do lots of walking trail rides. My dressage trainer instilled in me that a good, marching walk should be the core of your fitness program. I also enjoy communing with nature and listening to the birds. Today we went owling and got quite close to a barred owl.
2 Likes
