The Horse’s Gaits in Living Color
4 March 2010
Wednesday was Horsemanship Club, and three girls came for fun and learning in the sunshine after school. They watched a bit of the video The Visible Horse, with Emily stopping and starting the film to point out and talk about the horse’s movement and different gaits. What are gaits? The four gaits of most horses are: walk, trot, canter and gallop. After learning about the sequence of foot falls in each of the gaits from the movie, they got Buttercup from the big field where she was munching on grass and groomed her. She was dirty and shedding a lot, and she loved the attention from the girls. Emily wrapped two pairs of polo wraps on Buttercup’s legs: green ones on her left front and right hind legs, and blue ones on her right front and left hind legs. They all went to the arena where the girls sat on the mounting block and Emily longed Buttercup. At the trot her two blue wrapped legs moved together and the green ones moved together to complete the movement of the trot. Emily had Buttercup increase the length of her trot stride so the girls could learn about the different paces, rhythm and tempo of the trot. They clapped in time to Buttercup’s movement and noticed how she is not as balanced at the canter as she is at the trot. In the canter the legs move in a three beat sequence: outside hind leg first, then inside hind and outside front together, and finally the inside foreleg steps finishing the three beats of the canter. Duh-duh-dum, duh-duh-dum, duh-duh-dum! It’s like a waltz step in 1-2-3 time! You only have two legs. Can you canter? Not the same way we horses do, but you can move your legs so your feet make a 1-2-3 rhythm before the next three beats of your “canter!” Walking with color coordinated leg wraps takes four different colors because we only move one leg at a time in the walk, making a four beat rhythm in that gait!