Finding the trot in a pacey horse

[Slaptail]

So here’s some background info: I ride with my mother. About 4 months ago she decided to buy a horse from a boarder who didn’t have the time to take care of him.

He is an older horse (about to turn 19) and is swaybacked with little muscle.
We both have been working with this horse to build up his muscle, and he has shown major improvement.
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Except for the fact that he paces 100% of the time as an intermediate gait (from what we have seen and ridden).
We have been told by many people that he has trotted in the past, and if it is at all possible we would prefer it.

​​​​​​If anyone has any experience in this type of thing, any input would be super helpful. For right now we are lunging him at a walk and working on getting him to stretch down and use his back. We are also doing ground poles with him.

From what I have read, ground poles should help break up the pace. What I have found though is that he does a kind of off beat pace (maybe stepping pace?) And then continues pacing right after. So I am in search of suggestions and other exercises I can do with him.

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[csaper58]

@Slaptail All horses who gait naturally, have a genetic mutation on the DMRT3 gene. Some horses can ‘gait’ and trot, but not all can.

If you yourself have not seen this horse trot I would not put a lot of stock in what ‘others say’ they have seen.

As an older horse it may be more comfortable for his feet and/or his back for him to gait/amble.

[Magicboy]

Can you ride his pacing? If so why worry the old guy? What’s his canter like? If he canters for 5 minutes, does he trot then?

[hoopoe]

If this horse is a pacing standardbred, it may be a very difficult issue to solve, If it is a horse of a naturally gaited breed, as mentioned it may also be somewhat a challenge.

however, an 19 yo out of condition horse with gait irregularity and muscular wasting needs a good medical and neuro check up. Irregular gait from any number conditions including arthritis in the high neck, EPM Lyme etc need to be totally ruled out

[MidlifeCrisis]

You have to get him to drop his head. Great if he can lift his back too! I had a QH that could pace before he’d trot. It was a struggle but I found if I put a little bend in him and asked him to step a hind foot under before the trot aid, that would help.

[2DogsFarm]

Agreeing w/MidlifeCrisis :yes:

My current Science Project is a 14yo TWH, spent his 1st 13yrs horsecamping & was never asked to trot or was corrected when he broke gait. Last owner never even asked for canter in the 6yrs she rode him.
I did see him trot - tested on the longe - before agreeing to take him on.

I ride with a (dressage) trainer ~ 2X month & what has worked for him was ground poles at first & now that he is carrying himself in a rounder frame, he will go to Trot when his back comes up/neck goes round.
It’s still work for him to maintain Trot for the entire perimeter of my indoor - 60X120 - but he gets a little stronger & more consistent each time I ride.
We have just started Canter work - I wanted trot established before adding something else to the mix - and I can see it coming in a month or two.

This horse was out of shape - read: sausage-shaped - when I got him, but now, 1-1/2yrs later has slimmed down & muscled up.
Give your Senior some time to get into shape before asking too much.

[darkbay]

Agree with the others that you should be very careful working an older horse with no muscle. Work on getting him to use his back and create some supple bending. To fix a horse that can trot but gets pacey, I would work on leg yield. The leg yield helps create a more diagonal gait.

[Slaptail]

Thanks for the replies guys!
We had a vet out a few weeks ago and he is healthy.
He is a gaited breed, specifically a twh. But I have never seen him gait. Only pace. Before we got him he was a trail/camp horse and then the owners let a bunch of kids ride him unsupervised, so if he ever learned to gait it was probably not maintained and he probably stopped doing it a while back.
I read that the pace is hard on their joints and will cause problems over time, which was the reason for trying to correct it. His pace is fairly smooth though, I don’t have trouble riding it.

As far as the canter goes, it is pretty bad at the moment. He picks up the correct lead for the first two or three strides and then swaps leads behind. If I bend him a lot (as if we were about to do a small circle) and then keep him bent we can get a few more good strides. He will also do a balanced canter over poles.

Part of the problem doing canter work is getting him warmed up for it. I don’t want to allow him to pace but only walking before doing canter work doesn’t feel like much of a warm up.

I believe he paces out of the canter (it feels the same before and after and my mom won’t canter him so I can’t see what it looks like).

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[Miss_Woodford]

Some lines of TWHs tend to pace/rack instead of running walk except when they are heavily shod. Apparently the “trained” running walk looks flashier in the show ring than the natural version.

But if he’s a natural pacing horse why try and change that? Pacing shouldn’t be any harder on his joints than trotting, and especially with an older horse I wouldn’t try to reinvent the wheel.

[RTF]

As a pure dressage rider/ trainer, that has spent the last two years working with a Missouri foxtrotter, I will share what I have learned in regards to a gaited horse. One, if they gait, they just gait. Either they will show a natural pure trot or canter, or they will not. A walker will have a slow, " dog walk ( pure walk) and can pushed up to a flat walk ( a faster walk rhythm with more push) or a running walk ( a bit pacey, faster walk gait). Those are natural, but a horse must be trained to fall into, and maintain each one. The canter seems to come easier to a gaited horse that travels more, trotty or square…in other words if the tendency is towards a pace, the canter seems more pacey. The problem with a gaited horse is that a w/t/c horse will either loose balance or change their tempo/ rhythm at the w/t/c, a gaited horse will actually change their gait. So if you don’t help them find the gait, they will fall out of it. You cannot expect a gaited horse to trot. You might be able to train the trot, you might not. Even if the gait is, pacey, ride and train it in a round frame. My foxtrotter, learned round, soft and balanced at a slow walk. Eventually we were able to train the flat walk, running walk, foxtrot out of the correct walk. The gait itself is not damaging to the horse, it’s the way it is ridden. A hollow, stiff trotting horse is doing as much damage to itself as a hollow stiff gaited horse. Take time, train slow and correct and see what the horse offers. I told my client, you did not buy a w/t/c horse, don’t expect that from her. Her mare does offer a true trot, along with a foxtrot, but it took one year to train the foxtrot, and two years to get a good pure canter. I swear she’s harder to train than any other horse I have had as she has so many default gaits.