I have a question I actually haven’t been able to successfully google! When a horse trots, should both diagonal legs hit the ground at the same time or should the hind lead or the fronts lead?
Ideally the two feet hit at exactly the same time.
However modern video has shown this doesn’t always really happen. If you look up “advanced diagonal placement” you will find discussions on this. If the hind leg lands first that’s called positive DAP and can be considered consistent with good movement. However if the front leg lands first the horse is clearly weighted on the forehand.
If the trot breaks up more than that you are en route to having a fox trot which is one of the four beat gaits on a continuum with amble and rack.
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Ooh, mechanics! My favorite thing! I wrote my undergraduate thesis about using mathematics and biomechanics to diagnose lameness, so I get really excited about this kind of thing!
The definition of a trot says that it is a two-beated gait, so a true “trot” will have the front and hind diagonal pairs hit the ground at the same time. Additionally, there should be a moment of suspension where all four feet are off the ground that helps propel the horse forward.
If you’re interested in mechanics, I’d recommend several books:
Horse Gaits, Balance, and Movement by Susan Harris - this one talks more about the characteristics of gait and has more of a riding focus
The Dynamic Horse by Hilary Clayton (one of the most well-known equine biomechanics researchers) - this one is definitely more physics based but a great read if you’re a math nerd like me 
The Nature of Horses by Stephen Budiansky has a really awesome chapter about biomechanics as well and is one of my all-time favorite horse books
I realize this is more information than you wanted, but like I said, I can’t resist sharing 
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Thanks for the titles!
IME some horses have suspension and some don’t really.
I have a photo of my stock horse mare in a big pasture trot with her Oldenburg buddy.
He is in the suspension phase levitating above the ground. When I blew up the photo as computer wallpaper I saw that my mare is in very slight positive DAP.
We have worked long and hard and faitly successfully to diagonalize her trot, but her original sewing machine trot made everyone think she was gaited because her rear and front feet did not appear to be moving on the same schedule. I now expect that she was showing more DAP then.
But she has little or no moment of suspension unless she is extremely excited. Maybe in the last year I have started to feel a little suspension under saddle, a little lift.
DAP might cause lack of a moment of suspension in horses that don’t have really big gaits?
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Thanks guys! This is all really interesting and honestly something I’d never thought about until I noticed my horse shows what I know now is DAP
If a horse doesn’t have a moment of suspension at the trot, he’s not trotting properly/correctly. For sure, not all horses do, either by breeding or training. You won’t see a WP jog have any suspension, it’s just diagonal after diagonal in a “walk” trot.
Positive DAP is still controversial. ODGs and those who follow them think it’s impure Others think it’s find and even good as a sign of being uphill. It really comes down to degree.
Back in the day of the ODGs, you only knew it was present when it was visible to the eye, and that pretty much meant there was too much of it. That’s my opinion too - if you can SEE it, it’s too much, and therefore not correct, because it almost always means the front leg has not fully completed its forward phase, so you then have an impure trot. Adding to that, if there’s that much advanced placement of the hind foot, most of the time, the front foot will leave the ground that much later than the hind, which is not correct at all.
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I think DAP must shade into foxtrot at some point.
All the fancy gaits are on a continuum between the diagonal trot and the lateral pace. Every gaited breed has its own name for its gaits, but they all fall somewhere in here. Trot, then foxtrot, then right in the middle a perfect four beat amble, then a rack which is a broken lateral gait and then a pace.
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Exactly, and I think I even read that somewhere recently. “trot” just means a diagonal forward gait (as opposed to a diagonal rein-back). There will be slight deviations from 100% synchronous diagonal movement, from positive to negative DAP. Young/green/out of shape horses are more likely to have slight negative, and more fit horses who have lots of impulsion more likely to have positive DAP. But outside of the slight displacement, the trot becomes impure, and becomes neither a trot, nor a foxtrot, or some bastardization of one or the other.
Likewise, no moment of suspension is also considered impure, because the suspension is considered part of the pure trot, just like the pure canter.
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I can see no suspension being an impurity in the trot if you have for instance a nice big warmblood that you are riding sucked back and on the forehand so that he never gets to float under saddle like he does at liberty.
But what about a shorter strided stock horse type that can give a big fast trot, but just doesn’t have the lift for suspension? Granted she is unlikely to ever face serious dressage judging :). Now her DAP or fox trot sewing machine scsmper was a definite impurity and we’ve fixed that with a lot of work. But it’s unlikely she will ever have all 4 feet off the ground at the trot. This is true of lots of stock horse types. Is that an impurity, or just a gait unsuitable for the parameters of competition dressage?
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About Suspension… I would recommend to look into the Training scale https://www.usdf.org/about/about-dre…e-training.asp
There might be horses which will have have none to little suspension in the beginning. Suspension is on the scale only the 4th step. So the horse needs rhythm, looseness and connection before it can develope suspension. … Of course some horses do have it very early and easy. One reason why warmbloods are bred the way they are. Why not have it a little easier… But I think its amazing that also horses where you would think they have no suspension will develope it once you really get the first 3 steps… If there is no suspension there is something missing in the first steps… Sure the suspension might be less then in big moving warmbloods, but there should be some difference to before…
And its so helpful to have the training scale in your mind all the time. You can structure your daily lesson with it, and I use it right now with my young horse. In the beginning I only worked on rhythm with her but by now she is pretty good with rhythm and now I am hoping that because of her holding the rhythm she will relax (she most of the time does that as well) and right now I am working on the connection… We are progressing but not perfect yet…
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Yes, I agree. And I have started to feel more of a spring in her step in the last year or so. But I doubt she will ever have a clear floating moment like her Oldenburg buddy. And yes, no one who wanted a dressage horse would pick my girl. She has other qualities we love. If I’d put these years of work into a WB or an Andie we’d have a lot more to show for it
I would love to be proved wrong but I think that even at the best her trot develops there will nevet really be that clear 4 feet off the ground photo moment. More sproing for sure, I can see and feel that. But not levitation.
I guess it really depends on your training and discipline. From a classical riding perspective, the trot is not correct if there is no suspension. For an HUS or WP horse, that much impulsion is penalized.
A “shorter strided stock horse type that can give a big fast trot, but just doesn’t have the lift for suspension” lacks training IMHO Length of stride is irrelevant. He’s not going to have the suspension of a purpose-bred WB, but every horse can be taught to use himself to the best of his genetic ability and have SOME suspension. That’s where it turns into how good is the trot, which is a pretty big spectrum from “yes, it’s pure and correct and that’s all we’re looking for at this level of showing” to the lengthened and extended and working trots of the Olympic tests.
IMHO, all sound horses can have suspension. It then falls into how good is is, from whatever your discpline is - we’ll say Dressage - and there are most certainly horses who will never, ever be able to have the impulsion required to have the suspension for upper level tests, and that’s why not all horses will ever progress beyond 2nd Level or so.
Curious as to how we are defining suspension, just added sproing and longer rhythm, or actual levitation air time visible in a photo taken at the right moment?
Horse has had a lot of consistent schooling in classically inspired training which I’ve been learning as I go along. Horse has gone from DAP sewing machine almost foxtrot scamper to a proper diagonal working trot, and started doing collected to medium transitions which don’t look like much to observers but are impressive to the 2 or 3 people who knew her well at the start. She now tracks up like a normal horse!
I now feel some sproing and lift to her trot which wasn’t there before.
So she’s had a lot of training and it’s been effective but I doubt she will ever have real levitation, as in all 4 feet visibly off the ground at once. Of course it’s hard to see on soft footing.
Absolutely she’s not a serious dressage prospect by anyone’s standards, though my classical influenced coach is committed to the idea every horse can be schooled to move more correctly through dressage.
Scribbler, if your mare has a proper diagonal trot as you say, and tracks up as you say she absolutely, positively MUST have a moment of suspension where all four feet are off the ground. She could not possibly track up otherwise. It may be a split second, but it has to be there. :yes:
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Ok thank you! I will try to watch her on harder ground when we let her loose in pasture this summer. You can’t really see what her feet are doing in our soft bsrk mulch hog fuel arenas.
Yes, suspension is when all feet are off the ground. It would still be visible in a still photo.
The spectrum then runs from very little, very briefly at the trot, to as much as a horse can correctly get at the trot (think extended trot, usually), to a normal correct canter, to a big huge canter or hand gallop.
The bigger moments are clearly visible to the naked eye.
So yes, as Red said, if your mare really is tracking at least into the front prints, she’s suspended, however briefly.
A horse CAN have suspension in a sproingy Ay-rab-y moment trot (nobody take offense! It’s a description pretty much everyone gets, I bet ) looking like a gazelle, but it’s not a correct trot.
What that means is - suspension doesn’t equate to correctness at a gait, but correctness at the trot and canter - from a classical perspective - equates to suspension. Then it’s just a matter of how much.
Ok that all makes sense. I do feel a spring to her step that is new in the past year or two. I’m willing to believe that we have the very minimal amount of suspension that would only be visible on hard ground with a fast camera :). But nothing like the WB standies and Andies all around me come with factory installed.
