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December 2007 • VOLUME 28 • © HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine
The Trot
The most important gait.
By Egon von Neindorff
Our first article of this series described the walk as the most difficult gait in the early training of a riding horse. Great care, diligence, and patience proved to be valuable assets. What was spent in time and proper schooling will pay for itself in performance and much longer usefulness of the horse. The training and development of a horse in the trot demands equal dedication of the rider. Alois Podhajsky, former head of the
“The rider must realize that this early training may be of long duration,” Podhajsky says. “The greater part of the training, even as much as two thirds, may be required to consolidate this early conditioning. The rider will then have little difficulty in giving the finishing touches to his work of art. No time, be it ever so long, is lost or misspent in the consolidation of this basic training.”
This applies to the advanced rider as well as to the beginner. He who does not have time to give his horse careful training at the basic gaits may find his horse going sour all too soon. Aching muscles and joints will soon raise resistance against the impatient demands of the rider, and that wears out the strength of both of them unnecessarily. This point is reiterated for two reasons: the necessity of constant work to fashion a green horse into a riding horse is as important as the exercise of good judgement in regard to the right measure of work. Nothing is a greater risk than the present practice of asking young horses – and often just to get a better price – to perform with tensioned, showy paces.
Whatever the eventual goal towards which the rider is working his horse, be it jumping, cross-country, or the classical art of riding, the natural trot is of equal importance to all of them.
The rider must initially be able to follow the movement of the horse in the diagonal sequence of the steps, the thrust, and the period of suspension of this gait. Only a well-balanced school horse trotting with rhythm and with a swinging back can convey the right feeling for this gait to a beginner. On horses that, even without rider, have not yet found their balance, whose muscles and joints are not yet strong enough, training the rider becomes extremely complicated, expensive, and risky.
Young, nimble, lightweight riders, with their generally light hands but without experience, can sit out the awkward movements and sudden bucks of a green horse quite well in the beginning, but soon after, in addition to agility, self-control and experience become increasingly indispensable.
The lack of good school horses for the training of young riders, and thus for the “elementary” education of the horse, is often quite a problem nowadays. Horse shows reveal often enough that the idle talk of “know-it-alls” and “miracle trainers” inevitably costs nerves, time, and money. Big words cloud up clear facts and become not only annoying but costly to small and large riding establishments alike.
Let us therefore base our further discussion on a natural foundation, and let us assume that the rider has acquired a balanced seat and the proper aids on a supple, rhythmically trotting horse. He will then know that the aids to start trotting are the same as the aids for walking. He will see to it that the horse trots with impulsion and cadence at the tempo demanded by the rider and that his hands have a light, consistent contact with the bit.'
The German Cavalry Manual, completely focused on cross-country riding, says about increasing the tempo: “The legs drive the horse forward more definitely. The hand must yield enough not to inhibit the free steps but do it without losing contact with the horse’s mouth.”
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