You may want to possibly look at the NATRC website and find some contacts in your area from there. I say this because some of the most amazing gaited horses I have ever met have been very accomplished Competitive Trail horses. Their riders know these horses backwards and forwards and may be able to help you find someone hidden in your area that can help you. I know probably 5-10 people right off had that you would never find searching typical boarding barns but they are not in your area…it’s a niche group, sometimes you have to find someone who knows someone. www.natrc.org
I am sorry you are having so much trouble finding a trainer! For me, youtube videos do not help although they are a godsend for some people. I need an instructor telling me what I need to change/what I am getting right in order to make improvements. If you haven’t already, I would look into dressage trainers or general trainers including western. My primary instructor travels to me, and while she can teach/train most disciplines, she is incredible with horses with anxiety issues and baggage.
I have had the opportunity to ride a TWH for the last couple of years, and he has been a challenge! He is not the most athletically gifted animal to put it mildly with mental baggage to boot so getting a running walk has taken years… He paces or cross gallops when loose (it seems to me that if they go into a canter out of a pace they have no choice but to cross gallop unless they an athletically gifted animal). To get the running walk, he has had to build the muscles to lift his back with his core and get his haunches under him as well as using his neck properly (not inverting).
If you do find a trainer and they tell you the only way to get the gait is to use a bit with a shank, run… screaming preferably. If the horse and rider have not been taught properly about shanked bits, you will most likely end up with a horse curled behind the bit in a false headset with a dropped back and a camped out back end which is the exact opposite of what you need! The horse shouldn’t be ‘leaning’ on the bit to gait either. They can be light and lovely in your hands while they do it.
I agree you should have your lessons on your own horse and your horse should not be going off to a training facility without you. You are not a novice rider, just new to riding a gaited horse and learning how to fix any flaws that might benefit the intermediate gait.
When it comes to basic knowledge, gaited horses are not any different than any trotting breed out there. For now, you might think about treating the horse like it’s never been broke. Go clear back to training block square one. How fast you advance with her, depends on how much she knows.
Make sure her teeth are ok for a bit. Most folks these days do start TWH’s in a snaffle but I still favor a low port curb with shorter swivel shanks (4” or 6” ) so they can have a lot more neck movement if they want it.
If she isn’t ok with a bit, you can try a style of bitless. I’ve used a mechanical hackamore and I know a couple folks who use a Flower hackamore.
I wouldn’t jump into riding her, until you have graduated her from all of the ground basics — again how fast that happens depends on how much she knows:)
I have heard good things about Ivy S. Since you have already spoke with her, stick with her. College folks are hard pressed to have spare money but, if you do, invest in one of her videos that you feel will be the most benefit or subscribe on line:)
I don’t recommend this but when I bought my beloved Duke and said, “now what” to the Seller, his words were:
”sit back on your pockets, keep your hands low, and pretend you’re working a hula hoop”, and that was all the lessons I had, lollol. I rode bareback all my life so my sitting style was to hang my legs straight down. The old time gaited trail riders I know, do keep their legs a lot less bent at the knee than some trotting horse folks do.
If she progresses quickly in basic ground training, watch her length of stride and lay out some ground poles. Hand walk her across them to see how adept she is at “finding her feet”.
1.1. You could also teach her side pass those poles from the ground, starting out by only giving her two feet to side pass over and gradually increasing the length.
If she does not know how to back up, you can do that from the ground as well.
I was 13 and weighed about 90# when my Arab/Saddlebred was born on my parents farm. He was unexpected as the Seller had no idea the mare was in foal when he sold her to me.
By the time he was old enough for me to get on him, he already knew how to whoa, back up, and neck rein because I walked beside him, holding the reins in position as if I was riding him. In those days all we had for the horses were snaffle bits for driving and low port curbs for riding. The secret is having very light hands which many people only think they have and don’t :):). My grandfather’s first two rules to my cousin and I were “treat that horse the way you want to be treated” and “ don’t EVER let me catch you riding the horse’s head” :)
My Arab/Saddlebred lived 29 years:). Thanks to the savvy Amishman who owned the tack shop where I spent a lot of money, I put that horse in a low port curb with 4” swivel shanks when he was in his early teens. He never tossed his head after that. I learned he was a horse that liked to have that sense of head/neck freedom those swivel shanks gave him.
My beloved TWH, Duke, would occasionally enjoy a casual walk down the road and getting the reins wildly swinging to where it was difficult to stop laughing long enough to whoa him up and get my control back :). As I stated earlier, I rode bareback the bulk of my life, sliding down riverbanks and digging up the other side. I was partners with my horse, not a strict heavy handed disciplinarian. Nobody was ever hollowed out from wearing a swivel shanked low port curb - it’s all in the hands:)
Maybe you will get lucky and she will gait nicely for you. If she will go into it but not stay in it, it’s a matter of putting her back into gait each time she goes out and building some muscle memory. I personally would NOT take my gaited horse to a trainer that is not versed in the different gaits except for some ground work. I’d recommend doing Ivy’s gait analysis and online lessons first.
So I contacted the auction. They were not able to give me the sellers info but they did say that the seller bought her from the amish farm. She can drive as well, kind of cool. That was it for information but that’s enough for me.
Sounds like she has been moved around a lot. She might not have much of a personality for awhile, due to that.
Duke was just coming three, and I was already his fourth owner (and his last). He had been shipped to California and back to Kentucky where he ended up at a gaited horse auction.
Duke was very guarded for several months. I had someone ask me why I would buy a horse with zero personality. I replied “you wouldn’t have a personality either, if you were not even three, been hauled to California and back, and already on your fourth owner”.
Once he felt comfortable and secure, Duke ended up being a phenomenal communicator with a great sense of humor.
Hang in there and be patient, you will do just fine:)
Gaited horses are easily abused due to some of the show culture around them (soring, stacks, horrific bits all being thought to improve gait) and because they are easy going and stay saintly despite those practices.
My own 2 are survivors of what I’d consider abusive riding and poor management.
Sadie came to me as an Adult Horse of an Alcoholic. Previous owner never rode without a 12 pack in his saddlebags. She was responsible for ALL executive decisions under saddle and was a never wormed itchy mess who had rubbed out a lot of her tail and most of her mane. Resistant to the point of rebellion and had a dirty stop prop and spin spook that would unseat me Every Time.
She’s a packer now. She is absolutely beginner safe, unflappable on the trail.
Hawk was a nervous wreck because his previous owner hung on his mouth like grim death
and wanted him to prance. Her stepson could ride anything with hair and showed off his dubious horsemanship by spooking him into a run before mounting and vaulting into the saddle. They couldn’t catch him to ride him (duh) so they put a yearling size halter on him (I had to soak it off the sore it had worn into his jaw) and stampeded him into a stall to tack I’m up.
I am emphatically not a horse trainer. When I got these animals I was over 50 with bad knees, no experience with gaited horses and had had only limited formal riding instruction and hadn’t had horses in 10 years nor ridden more than a couple times during that hiatus.
They are both reliable trail horses now and happy and healthy and sound. My point being I allowed them to be horses and worked through their collective issues without any trainer. I read up on problem solving. I did what made sense to me and tried different things until something worked.
With Sadie I used clicker training (learned from a book) and engaged her mind and earned her trust and respect. She is an alpha mare and so am I but the partnership works.
I never used a clicker with Hawk. After I soaked his too small halter off I turned him out in a 10 acre field and promised him he’d never be turned out in a halter again. I walked him down and haltered him and took the halter off about 5 times that day. After that he became the easiest horse in the world to catch. Once I had to be elsewhere for a farrier appointment and the late lamented Mr Jeano had to catch him. I asked if he had any trouble with the rope halter and he said No, Hawk showed me how to put it on.
Be nice to your mare, let her show you what she knows, and if she’s like the gaited horses I’ve known she’ll respond to kindness and consistency and blossom. The gaits she has might vary from what’s expected but try to roll with it. I wouldn’t get my panties in a twist over some trotting or ambling or even hard pacing. Just follow the solutions to these gait issues suggested by Lee Z and Ivy S and Liz.G.
@jeano That was very helpful. I do see your point of them being easily abused. From my searches, it looks like they are commonly used by the backyard trainers. By that I mean the ones who learned how to ride by watching the saddle club once.
I want to give her time to decompress with me, right now she is in heaven and being spoiled rotten by the lady boarding her. We are driving down Saturday to pick her up. It will be an 8 hour ride one way to Maryland. On the way back I found a rest area where we can unload her and let her stretch her legs. I don’t want to sour her trailering experience. I was told she trailers very well.
Very impatient to get her. Fixing up the pasture, paddock and her stall. The boarding barn I am taking her to in Upstate New York has a 3/4 mile track, I figured that’d be nice to use to let her show off her stride.
PLEASE do not unload a strange horse in a strange place. Just let the trailer sit still a while and she’ll be fine. offer her water and leave her on the trailer.
I moved three horses 2,100 miles across the U.S. twice, in an open stock horse trailer. I never took them out of the trailer at a rest area to “rest” and they were my horses for years before we moved:):). There are many unpredictable reasons that word “accident” came to be:)
My horses were not taken out of the trailer until we go to our layovers, each night and sometimes road construction kept them in the trailer for 10 hours.
Just keep hay in front of her at all times. Offer her water bout half way thru the drive. Carry a couple of gallons of human water and a container big enough she can drink out of in the trailer but not so big you can’t get it in front of her:)
Believe me, she knows the trailer drill and will arrive at her destination less of a wreck than you, lollol:)
We trailered across the country and only unloaded at a single layover spot. First half was 17 hours(on accident…our travel time was impacted by weather but we had to get to our layover spot… should have only been about 12 hours). Second chunk was about 8-9 hours. We stopped every 3 or so hours for fuel which allowed horse to rest. We also had him box stall style in the trailer. He did great on the trip. We were far more tired than he was!
Yes, Ivy is fantastic at helping you ID the gaits she wants to offer.
I have one who is naturally very inclined to ‘dog walk’ AKA regular or medium walk, flat walk (same footfalls, but w/ more thrust from behind, more power), and run walk (again, same walk footfall pattern 1 2 3 4) and still more power and push. The hind legs in a RW will extend out behind the horse in a way you’d likely not see in any stock type horse- they really knock it out and their neck and head act like a counter-weight, head down/hind out, head up/other hind out. Allll of show walkers aren’t really doing it, they’ve been taught to look like they are with a head shake alone/the neck isn’t shaking, too.
Anywho about this horse of mine- he’ll ‘fall out’ of gait if he’s allowed to just go faster and faster - he shifts into a rack (tightens his midsection/no head & neck shake), still a 1 2 3 4 but it’s hollow sounding on the ground, where a strong running walk has more ‘thump’ in the footfalls. so he likes a little mullen mouthed bit with a little shank on it and some hold on his mouth, not a lot, but he honestly does a bit of balancing on it to stay in the proper gear that I asked for. I can hum a little deep, no-no sort of hum and he’ll half halt back into balance. He’ll run all over a snaffle if allowed
I live in New England and go to school in Upstate New York. I will be boarding her near Albany. I am considering finding someone who offers an internship for next summer. So if you guys know of any gaited barns that offer internships or places I can look for internships that might have a barn near buy with a gaited trainer Id be open to that.
[ATTACH=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“medium”,“data-attachmentid”:10761308}[/ATTACH][ATTACH=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“medium”,“data-attachmentid”:10761309}[/ATTACH] Here are few pictures of her. Her name is Sadie. I was told she was built nicely but I am not familiar with TWH conformation
Dont let the Quarter Horse folks try to influence you to fatten her up:). That narrow chest is perfectly normal on Walking Horse:)
TWH’s are power houses, that can gait all day long, when in condition.
Keep her lean, as Tennessee Walkers are one of the top breeds predisposed to insulin resistance:). Generally most IR horses are overweight when diagnosed, but horses can also be thin. Stress can cause a lot of things:)
