Question about Saddlebred horses.?

Question

OK I am asking this question on behalf of a friend w/o the internet. She has a Saddlebred gelding and I am not really familiar with them. I have been reading a lot but you can only learn so much from that. I need to ask someone w/experience. Well to the point... She is unsure of how to get him in his gait or see if he even has one. We understand that not all Saddlebred's do the gait but we just want to see if he knows it and how to get him in it. Thanks a lot.

Answer 1

What do you mean by "the gait".  Do you mean rack or slow gait? Or do you mean action?

To rack or slow gait a horse needs to be trained.  Usually if some buys a five gaited saddlebred they know it when they buy the horse. It takes a lot of training and time and money to teach the horses theses gaits.  So that is a big selling point when the horse is sold, and they are usally a lot more money.

Action is something the horses will do by it self, as it moves.   You have to ask them to move forward, the more forward they move the more action they will have.  There are training aids that will help given them more action, but its something they were breed and built to do.  It you use theses aid a quater horse, it won't given them high stepping action cause they are not bilt they same way as a gaited horse.  If you have no experience i would not suggest using theses aids on you own.  

Answer 2

What you will be able to get him to do depends on whether he was trained for show.  Also, not all saddlebreds are 5 gaited.  Only 5 gaited can do the 'rack' or stepping pace and it is a man-made gait.

http://www.horsechannel.com/horse-showin...

Answer 3

Well its not really the fact of whether or not he is gaited.  All Saddlebreds have the ability to gait just some have the ability to do the gait at longer periods of time than others and the stronger ones are the ones that become the show gaited horses.  Training them just teaches them that they can do it and how.  

To see if he knows what to do:

You want to sit deep in your seat with heels down and sitting up straight.  With short reins and hands about waist high you want to spread your hands about 8 inches apart and kinda rock his bit back left and right lightly with your fingers while you are squeezing a little with your calves.  In the beginning you want to let him bring his nose up so he can drop his weight to his backend more. If you are asking him clearly enough you should start to feel your hips moving side to side kinda like walking.  Keep asking him to go forward with your legs but rating his speed with your hands.  You want to keep him balanced while doing it since it is very easy to slip into a canter so if he starts to lean one way bump with the opposite hand.  It will be a little bouncy but not like a trot so there will be no push up out of the saddle.  If hes not in shape don't push it too much since it is a very tiring gait.  The feet will touch the ground one at a time and you should be able to count 1-2-3-4 if its a true slow gait/rack.  

http://www.gaitedhorses.net/Articles/Rac...