Multiple Riders and Gaited Horses
By Gaye DeRusso
I had a client with a pacey horse, ask me over and over again, why her horse would not gait well. I gave her the same answer every time. You have too many riders on him that do not help him gait. He has never been given enough training/education to know what gait to do and he has never had a rider who helped him. Until he gets those things, he will never gait well.
The story is usually the same with these kinds of horses. They were never trained well, and their breeding did not give them the natural talent to just gait. They can gait, but they need someone who can help guide them and keep them in the correct gait. Without that guidance, they will naturally fall into the easiest gait. With these kinds of horses, they will either fall into the pace or the trot, depending on what is natural for them.
Multiple riders on any kind of horse can be very confusing for the horse. Each rider, rides differently and even if they are experienced riders, they will still give cues differently and release and reward differently. So even with experienced riders the horse can get confused.
An inexperienced rider will confuse the horse even more. So much that the horse may refuse to go or starts taking off. The riders pull when they should be releasing, they release when they should pull, and they kick when they should just put on a small amount of leg. The horse gets so confused and frustrated that they start to act up in protest.
Horses have stages of their education/training just like humans. The regular trotting horses that can tolerate multiple riders are usually at college level training or beyond and are older horses. These horses understand to ignore the novice riders.
I have seen many nice younger trotting horses get messed up from having too many novice riders on them. They may tolerate it for a while, but sooner or later they take over for self-preservation and all of a sudden that nice horse is not so nice anymore.
So, if the regular trotting horse can get messed up so easily, a gaited horse will get messed up even faster.
The gaited horses that can tolerate multiple riders are the ones with a high level of training and years of experience - college level but also the ones that gait most naturally and do not need much help, they just gait. So even if they are ridden wrong, they may go too fast or too slow, but they don't break into a trot or a pace.
But the gaited horses usually do not have many years of high-level training to that college level. Even if they were trained well, they usually end up with novices on their backs that confuse them. As so many are sold as trail horses and many trail riders have never had many lessons or learned how to properly use their hands, seat, legs, and balance to help a horse.
So many gaited horses do not have that natural talent to just gait and so they pace or trot or do both at times. So, when the rider does not help them to stay in gait, they just naturally go to pacing or trotting.
If you want to have multiple riders on your horse and not have issues, you have a couple options. One you buy the best naturally gaited horse you can find with lots of experience and training. An older horse is better.
Then show every single rider how to ride that horse correctly. Then you make sure you or an experienced gaited trainer rides that horse every week to tune him up and remove any confusion he has gotten from the other riders. If you don't, he may still gait ok, but he is going to start having behavior issues.
Two, if you bought a horse that can fall into a pace or trot, you need to get that horse set in its gaits as best as you can before you have other riders on him. Then you need to give the riders all lessons to learn how to ride and keep that horse in gait. You will need to ride or have an experienced gaited trainer ride that horse several times a week or more to keep it gaiting well.
The third and best option is to have any non-gaited rider, or a novice rider only ride the horse at a slow walk and not gait at all. That rider needs to learn how to ride and do all the basics of the riding before ever going faster on a gaited horse if you want to avoid ruining your horse.
I let a girl ride one of my trained horses with awesome gaits for a week while I was away. I thought he was so set in his gaits how could she mess him up. Well, she did. When I got back, he was trotting. I even had to get the chiropractor out to help fix him. Because even though I got his gait back he did not feel the same. After the chiropractor all was good again. So that one week did not help me or my horse in any way, it just cost me money and time to get him back to where he was when I left. From then on, I would just have my horses turned out when I was away.
Now, I personally will only give lessons on my horses; I will never let anyone just ride them because it is so easy to mess the gaited horses up. It takes years and years to make a nice, gaited horse. But that nice horse can be messed up in less than a week of bad riding.
So, if you have a horse that paces, or trots and you have multiple riders on that horse. Realize it will never gait well. Because anytime that horse is allowed to trot or pace, it is getting the wrong message, that it is ok to trot or pace. So, you will never have great gaits. To have great gaits from a horse like this, you have to teach it first how to hold the gait. Then you have to condition it to hold the gait and then you will have to ride it correctly every time.
So, if you want to have multiple riders on a horse, either get one that you don't care if its gaits get messed up or stop complaining about its gaits. Because the horse is not to blame. The only one to blame is you.
By Gaye DeRusso
I had a client with a pacey horse, ask me over and over again, why her horse would not gait well. I gave her the same answer every time. You have too many riders on him that do not help him gait. He has never been given enough training/education to know what gait to do and he has never had a rider who helped him. Until he gets those things, he will never gait well.
The story is usually the same with these kinds of horses. They were never trained well, and their breeding did not give them the natural talent to just gait. They can gait, but they need someone who can help guide them and keep them in the correct gait. Without that guidance, they will naturally fall into the easiest gait. With these kinds of horses, they will either fall into the pace or the trot, depending on what is natural for them.
Multiple riders on any kind of horse can be very confusing for the horse. Each rider, rides differently and even if they are experienced riders, they will still give cues differently and release and reward differently. So even with experienced riders the horse can get confused.
An inexperienced rider will confuse the horse even more. So much that the horse may refuse to go or starts taking off. The riders pull when they should be releasing, they release when they should pull, and they kick when they should just put on a small amount of leg. The horse gets so confused and frustrated that they start to act up in protest.
Horses have stages of their education/training just like humans. The regular trotting horses that can tolerate multiple riders are usually at college level training or beyond and are older horses. These horses understand to ignore the novice riders.
I have seen many nice younger trotting horses get messed up from having too many novice riders on them. They may tolerate it for a while, but sooner or later they take over for self-preservation and all of a sudden that nice horse is not so nice anymore.
So, if the regular trotting horse can get messed up so easily, a gaited horse will get messed up even faster.
The gaited horses that can tolerate multiple riders are the ones with a high level of training and years of experience - college level but also the ones that gait most naturally and do not need much help, they just gait. So even if they are ridden wrong, they may go too fast or too slow, but they don't break into a trot or a pace.
But the gaited horses usually do not have many years of high-level training to that college level. Even if they were trained well, they usually end up with novices on their backs that confuse them. As so many are sold as trail horses and many trail riders have never had many lessons or learned how to properly use their hands, seat, legs, and balance to help a horse.
So many gaited horses do not have that natural talent to just gait and so they pace or trot or do both at times. So, when the rider does not help them to stay in gait, they just naturally go to pacing or trotting.
If you want to have multiple riders on your horse and not have issues, you have a couple options. One you buy the best naturally gaited horse you can find with lots of experience and training. An older horse is better.
Then show every single rider how to ride that horse correctly. Then you make sure you or an experienced gaited trainer rides that horse every week to tune him up and remove any confusion he has gotten from the other riders. If you don't, he may still gait ok, but he is going to start having behavior issues.
Two, if you bought a horse that can fall into a pace or trot, you need to get that horse set in its gaits as best as you can before you have other riders on him. Then you need to give the riders all lessons to learn how to ride and keep that horse in gait. You will need to ride or have an experienced gaited trainer ride that horse several times a week or more to keep it gaiting well.
The third and best option is to have any non-gaited rider, or a novice rider only ride the horse at a slow walk and not gait at all. That rider needs to learn how to ride and do all the basics of the riding before ever going faster on a gaited horse if you want to avoid ruining your horse.
I let a girl ride one of my trained horses with awesome gaits for a week while I was away. I thought he was so set in his gaits how could she mess him up. Well, she did. When I got back, he was trotting. I even had to get the chiropractor out to help fix him. Because even though I got his gait back he did not feel the same. After the chiropractor all was good again. So that one week did not help me or my horse in any way, it just cost me money and time to get him back to where he was when I left. From then on, I would just have my horses turned out when I was away.
Now, I personally will only give lessons on my horses; I will never let anyone just ride them because it is so easy to mess the gaited horses up. It takes years and years to make a nice, gaited horse. But that nice horse can be messed up in less than a week of bad riding.
So, if you have a horse that paces, or trots and you have multiple riders on that horse. Realize it will never gait well. Because anytime that horse is allowed to trot or pace, it is getting the wrong message, that it is ok to trot or pace. So, you will never have great gaits. To have great gaits from a horse like this, you have to teach it first how to hold the gait. Then you have to condition it to hold the gait and then you will have to ride it correctly every time.
So, if you want to have multiple riders on a horse, either get one that you don't care if its gaits get messed up or stop complaining about its gaits. Because the horse is not to blame. The only one to blame is you.