in this random rambling thread we post random pictures

[N F C]

What?

 

[canesisters]

Yes, it's a 'lope'. The super slow gait and the low headset are much desired - although I have NO idea why. It's one of those things where one horse won who happened to have a bit of a slow gait - so the next year everyone had it - and 5 years later is MUCH exaggerated - and 10 years later it's so un-natural that it can't be recognized anywhere other than in a western pleasure show ring. The horses aren't harmed. Nothing has been 'done' to them. They've been slowly conditioned (and bred) to do this.
It's not really all that different from the over exaggerated racking done by saddle horses. Both TOTALLY un-natural. Both totally useless outside of a show ring. Both just an out of control exaggeration of a natural gait.

 

[drsteik84]

Yes, it's a 'lope'. The super slow gait and the low headset are much desired - although I have NO idea why. It's one of those things where one horse won who happened to have a bit of a slow gait - so the next year everyone had it - and 5 years later is MUCH exaggerated - and 10 years later it's so un-natural that it can't be recognized anywhere other than in a western pleasure show ring. The horses aren't harmed. Nothing has been 'done' to them. They've been slowly conditioned (and bred) to do this.
It's not really all that different from the over exaggerated racking done by saddle horses. Both TOTALLY un-natural. Both totally useless outside of a show ring. Both just an out of control exaggeration of a natural gait.

I agree that nothing has been done to make them lame. However, that is not a lope. Horse movement in terms of speed from slowest to fastest is four-beat walk, two-beat trot (jog), three-beat lope (canter), four-beat gallop, and run. There are exceptions for gaited horses. The gait being used in the video does have a three-beat cadence, however, it is not a leaping gait which the lope/canter is. It looks like someone trying to force the horse into an unnatural three-beat trot.

 

[Bunnylady]

If you want to talk about "unnatural" gaits, you have plenty to choose from at the other end of the horse riding spectrum, dressage. I'm afraid I must disagree with you, drsteik84; that is a lope, just as every 3-beat stride that Toto does here is a "canter," even when he pirouettes and loses all forward motion, and everything from the piaffe to that amazing extended trot is a trot:

The gaits of the "Western Pleasure" horse were supposed to be comfortable and easy on both horse and rider, so low and slow strides were what was wanted. But as seems to happen in show rings, what was preferred has been exaggerated to such a degree that the original purpose has been completely lost, and as canesisters said, the gait (and maybe the horse) is useless outside of the show ring.

 

[drumstick diva]

What a performance

 

[suebgbr]

 

[drsteik84]

Disagree if you want. My wife trains horses. Just confirmed with her. It is not a lope. Also, FYI, a lope and canter are English and western names for the same gait.

 

[suebgbr]

 

[drumstick diva]

When people get tired messing up their own lives, then they turn to their animals... or so it seems

 

[Bunnylady]

Disagree if you want. My wife trains horses. Just confirmed with her. It is not a lope. Also, FYI, a lope and canter are English and western names for the same gait.

They may technically be the same gait, but the style of movement is different. I have a Quarter Horse that goes both English and Western, and she knows the difference - her "jog" is relatively slow and very flat, almost shuffling, while her "trot" has more elevation and impulsion (but trust me, she isn't anything like either of the examples we have just looked at. That's what "goes both English and Western" usually translates to - "isn't particularly good at either one!"

)