Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 December 1881 — Saddle Horses and Saddle Gaits [ARTICLE]

Saddle Horses and Saddle Gaits

National Live Stock Journal; There Is an increasing demand of late for good saddle horses, and many of the fairs this season are giving much more attention than formerly to this class. The gaits that especially commend a horse for use In the saddle are the walk,the fox single-foot and the rack. The walk is a gait understood by everybody, but everybody does not understand that a.good saddle horse ought to be able to go a square walk at the rate of five miles an hour. The fox trot is fastet than the square walk, and the horse will usually take a few steps St this gait when changing from a fast walk to a trot. The single foot differs somewhat lrom the fox trot, and has been described as exactly intermediate between the true trot and the true walk. Each foot appears, to move independently of the other “with a sort of a pit-a-pat one-at-a-time motion, and Is a much faster gait than the fox trot. The rack is very nearly allied to’the true pacing Sait, the difference being that in the itterthe hind foot keeps exact time with fore foot of the same 'side, making if what has been called a literal or one-side-ab-a-time motion, while in the former the hind foot touches Hie ground slightly in advance of the fore foot on the same side. Hie rack is not so fast a gait as the true pace,bat is a very .deslrable gait in a saddle horse. > .