Horses used on the Escape Route

[Eva Elisabeth]

(03-12-2014 11:26 AM)BettyO Wrote:  Don't know about the Iceland ponies. Have never seen nor ridden one nor know of anyone who has. But it may be like a pacer, perhaps? Pacers are supposed to be an easy ride. Their legs move in a synchronized style. A Tennesee Walkers' gait is more or less a rocking trot. When I was a kid, a friend of my father owned one and I used to ride "Strawberry" (yes, he was a strawberry roan - i.e. roan with a red mane and tail as opposed to black) all the time. He was a huge horse, full 16-17 hands but extremely gentle and easy to ride.

Pacers are also faster than trotters on the average, though horses are raced at both gaits. Among Standardbred horses, pacers breed truer than trotters – that is, trotting sires have a higher proportion of pacers among their get than pacing sires do of trotters.

Here are the differences between trotting and pacing under saddle. Notice the legs on the pacer apart from that of the trotter.

The pacer in this photo is an Iceland pony.



Here is a trotting horse under saddle.



Powell's old one eyed nag was a pacer.

If you click on the following graphic you will see a pacer in motion. This an animated gif of a Muybridge motion picture taken of a pacer in the 1880s-1890s.

Thanks, Betty. I found out that tölt is obviously similar to the rack of the American Saddlebred (which I've never seen, neither the horse nor the gait). However, it's different to the pace, where always two legs on the same side of the horse move forward together. In tölt, the legs move like this:
   
It can be as fast as gallop, but doesn't shake the rider, and both, horse and rider, can go over long distances in this gait.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-7rWeWymJDw