Tennesse Walking Horses have a natural ability to perform smooth gaits like the flat walk and running walk. Yet these gaits need to be developed. Just how do you begin? Let’s take a look.
Running walk with contact and flexion at the poll.
All horses are born with the ability to walk, but not all horse breeds are born with the ability to perform the flat walk and running walk. The Tennessee Walking Horse is bred for these naturally smooth four beat walking gaits.
The foot fall sequence of the collected walk, ordinary walk, free walk, flat-footed walk, flat walk and running walk are all even four beat step sequences. The differences between these walks are the tempo, length of stride, depth of head nod, engagement of the legs and/or engagement of the hindquarters. The collected walk has the slowest tempo and shortest stride length with engagement of the hindquarters and little to no head nod, while the running walk has engagement of the hindquarters and engagement of the legs, the maximum length of stride, head nod, and most tempo of the walks.
If the flat walk and running walk are expressions of walk, how do you develop them?
The free walk is a great place to begin
When your horse is just starting the smooth gait work, the free walk is a great place to begin developing the flat walk and running walk because of its relaxed nature, slower tempo, long stride length with engagement of the legs, and evenness of the four-beat footfall sequence. By engagement of the legs the horse is encouraged to step deep under the body mass with the hind leg. This produces over track where the hind hoof oversteps the fore hoof print. The free walk can be ridden on a long rein with contact or a loose rein. Both allow the horse to extend the head and neck outward with the poll at wither height. Once the free walk is well established at a slower and deliberate tempo and rhythm to develop these qualities, the tempo can increase slightly.
Free Walk on a Long Rein
Gradually increase the tempo while maintaining the beautiful qualities you’ve built: relaxation, balance, length and evenness of stride, and a four-beat footfall sequence.
At first, there may only be a few steps and the horse tenses up or loses balance. No worries! This is common. Adding tempo adds factors the horse needs to figure out like adjusting balance and finding relaxation at a new tempo.
Whenever your horse loses balance or relaxation, or begins to take short quick steps, calmly back down the tempo and reclaim the quality steps you built in the free walk. Then slowly ease into the next tempo. These up and down transitions are great for the horse to learn balance with a rider.
The flat-footed walk is the next progression
From the free walk the horse will eventually move into the flat-footed walk. While it is a long striding walk with a four-beat footfall sequence and head nod, you’ll notice there will be a lot of lower back and hip joint undulation to follow the horse’s motion.
This flat-footed walk on a long rein shows engagement of the legs and engagement of the hindquarters. The wither is raised and the horse is balanced even in a neutral head position.
Depending upon the age of your naturally gaited Tennessee Walking Horse, you may be at the free walk and flat-footed walk for several weeks of training 5-6 days per week before moving into the smooth flat walk. It takes time for the horse to develop strength to carry a rider with long strides in balance and to develop an evenly timed four beat foot fall sequence.
The flat walk is the introduction to smooth gaits for the Tennessee Walking Horse
The next level of tempo is the smooth flat walk. Once you achieve a few smooth strides, stop to reward your horse. The goal is to preserve the qualities built from the free walk and flat-footed walk into the smooth flat walk. Work through the transitions of free walk to flat footed walk to flat walk to halt and reward often. Within weeks of consistent training, your horse will move from a few flat walk steps to a minute or more of flat walk before a halt break.
Flat walk in a neutral position.
Here the flat walk is shown with contact. This is later on in training.
The running walk gets better over time
Finally, we have reached the running walk. Once your horse has developed a consistent flat walk, it is time to engage the legs and engage the hindquarters for steps of the running walk. Engagement of the hindquarters is when the horse tucks the hindquarter and carries more weight to raise the wither.
In this running walk on a loose rein the horse is showing engagement of the hind legs by stepping deep under the body mass with one hindleg more than the other hindleg trails behind the tail and engagement of the hindquarters raising the withers. The horse has a head and neck nod in timing with the hind leg steps. The running walk is super smooth!
Running walk with contact and flexion at the poll. This position is introduced later in training.
Problems that arise when pushing the horse into flat walk and running walk faster than the horse is ready for it:
The horse rushes into short, quick steps. They might be smooth steps, but it won’t be a running walk.
The horse gets tense and begins to pace, step pace or hard trot. If the rider pulls on the horse’s mouth, it further adds tension and reinforces these gaits.
The horse loses balance, falls onto the forehand and begins tripping.
How do I know? I have made all of these mistakes, and mistakes add even more time to the training to re-earn trust with my horse. So, my advice is to take the time your horse needs to develop the strength, muscle memory, and balance to perform relaxed smooth gaits.
How long will it take to develop the running walk?
Great question. It depends on the horse, the rider’s level of knowledge and riding ability, and the number of training days per week of consistent training.
I can comfortably say, the running walk takes time for a horse to develop with quality. By quality, I mean a running walk with maximum length of stride with engagement of the hindquarters and engagement of the legs (over track and a deeper step under the body mass more than the trailing hind leg behind the tail), evenness of stride, signature head nod with each hind leg step, and an even four beat gait that is smooth as glass. I am telling you, it is worth the wait!
In the meantime, enjoy the flat walk, which is also smooth. Trail riding with others who have seasoned Tennessee Walking Horses can also help your training come along while you and your horse enjoy a break from arena riding.
If you are new to riding gaited horses, I would seek lessons and traveling clinicians to learn as much as possible. However, there are many ways to train gaited horses: rail class showing, trail riding, and dressage. So, choose instruction that aligns with your riding goals.
What about the pacey Walking Horse?
Some Tennessee Walking Horses are naturally pacey. Adding speed to a pacey walk creates a faster pace which is not a flat-footed walk, flat walk or running walk.
There is still hope for the pacey Walking Horse. You’ll need to teach your horse a new muscle memory from a lateral foot fall to a diagonal foot fall. Ground rails, exercises like the shoulder-in, and even teaching trot on cue can help diagonalize the foot fall sequence.
2009: Tension equals pace. Here’s me and my naturally gaited Tennessee walking horse, Makana, early in our training. We struggled with pace as shown above. Notice the spurs, riding two handed with low, fixed hands using a curb bit, sitting on my pockets with all my weight on the saddle. I learned this from gaited riders. They told me this is how to make them gait. Does my Tennessee walking horse look relaxed in the mouth, jaw and body? Tension leads to pace. That’s why I don’t ride two handed with a curb bit anymore. I ride with a snaffle bit using dressage. I teach bit acceptance not bit avoidance. Relaxation is the key to develop quality smooth gait.
Important qualities to develop the evenly timed four beat flat walk and running walk
Relaxation of mind and body: Relaxation is imperative for smooth gaits.
Become a relaxed rider in order to lead your horse into relaxation
Become an educated rider with your hands to transmit relaxation to the horse’s mouth
Balance: Carrying weight more evenly on all four legs
If your horse leans on the bit or pull itself forward with the front legs, these are good indications that the horse is on the forehand. Developing balance takes time. A good place to start is learning how work in hand makes training easier.
Teach your horse how to engage the hind legs to step more deeply under its body mass more than the hind legs trails behind the tail. This will develop over step for a longer length of stride.
Impulsion: Forward movement without rushing
Rushing leads to short quick steps, loss of relaxation, and balance. If we desire the long strides in a quality free walk, flat footed walk, flat walk and running walks, we need forward movement without rushing.
Rhythm: Steadiness in tempo and gait quality
Once the horse has developed relaxation, balance and forward motion without rushing, you’ll settle more easily into a steady rhythm.
Music can help the horse find rhythm. If you don’t have access to music, sing the tempo and rhythm you desire for your horse to move at. This has helped me with my naturally gaited horses.
Watch: Tips to Longer Strides and Smoother Gaits
I hope this is helpful. Let me know your thoughts by sending a message.
Does your gaited horse struggle with a flat four-beat canter or bumpy lateral canter? You’re not alone. I’ve learned a few ways to improve canter quality with my gaited horse.
Here’s my story…
How to improve canter with a gaited horse
By Jennifer Klitzke
Experiencing dressage with my naturally gaited horses proves that relaxation of the mind and body produce smoother gaits, including canter. This means less lateral canter and four beat canter.
“Don’t practice a poor-quality canter.”
I learned an important lesson from my gaited dressage mentor, Jennie Jackson. She says, “Don’t practice a poor-quality canter.” This means as soon as my horse begins to feel flat, hollow, bumpy, braced, or out of balance in the canter, I need to stop cantering and start over from relaxation. That’s when I transition from canter to a walk or halt, re-establish balance and relaxation and ask for a quality canter depart to quality canter steps.
This also means I need to recognize the feeling of a quality canter and a poor-quality canter so that I can ask for more of the former and reduce steps of the latter. If I continue riding a poor-quality canter, that’s what I teach my horse.
If I want a quality canter, I must know firsthand what a quality canter feels like and practice more of it. That’s why taking lessons from a qualified instructor is so important to me. Instruction provides me timely feedback so that I can learn the feeling of quality and the feeling of poor quality. This helps me train my horses with greater progress and success when I am riding on my own.
Helpful exercises to help break up a four-beat canter into a truer three-beat canter
Walk-canter-walk transitions
Rein back to canter
Practicing rein back with smaller steps that bend and fold the hind quarters of the gaited horse and helps improve canter quality.
One of my favorite exercises is establishing a soft and round rein back before a canter depart. When the rein back is soft, not forced, and not rushed, it encourages my horses to bend their hindquarter joints and engage their abdominal muscles which lifts their back. This puts them in a wonderful posture most conducive for a quality canter depart and canter steps.
Counter canter
Gymnastic jumping and ground rails
Showing stadium jumping over rails
While I will never become serious about show jumping my naturally gaited horses, I enjoy schooling them over ground rails and small fences for gymnastic purposes. It gives them variety in their training. I’ve noticed that when we ride over ground poles and small fences, it creates more lift to their canter and brings out a truer three-beat canter.
Video: Cantering a Gaited Horse over Obstacles
Video: Starting a Gaited Horse over Fences
Below is a cantering exercise over two ground rails in an L-shape. I begin by letting my horse walk over the rails before we cantered over them.
Video: Exercises to Break a Lateral or Four-Beat Canter
This is a super fun exercise for the rider and horse.
In addition to improving the quality of canter, you’ll also learn:
Balance of the horse
Rider balance on the horse
The horse’s rhythm
Keeping the horse forward yet relaxed
Looking ahead to plan the arc of a turn and line to a rail
Getting a feel for how many canter strides to a rail
The L-shape can also be used to school flying changes over the rail by alternating the direction over each pole.
Additional tips to introducing and improving canter quality
I hope this is helpful. Let me know your thoughts by sending a message.
Naturally gaited Tennessee walking horse at a free walk, flat footed walk, flat walk and running walk on a loose rein.
Fun comparison of four walking gaits on a loose rein of the same naturally gaited horse on the same day in regular and slow motion.
4 Walks on a Loose Rein
By Jennifer Klitzke
In dressage, we communicate with the horse through the consistent use and effective timing of our rein, leg, seat and weight aids. The horse learns to accept and follow a light snaffle bit contact and the rider learns to follow the horse’s natural head and neck motion.
What happens to communication on a long loose rein?
In dressage, through the course of a 30–60-minute riding session, the horse is offered many breaks (rewards). The horse is halted or released to a walk and the rein is extended to the buckle on loose rein.
This is video captures moments through our ride where my naturally gaited Tennessee walking horse is enjoying her breaktime. She is relaxed in mind and body, traveling forward with even rhythm, and in balance.
As I watch this video, I notice her free walk and flat-footed walk are the most expressive with the biggest strides, over track, and head nod. In these expressions of walk, they have the most motion to follow with my hip joints.
What happens to quality on a loose rein?
I also notice, the faster she travels, the smoother she naturally becomes, and the less motion I have to follow with my hip joints. However, I also notice, the faster she travels on a loose rein, the shorter her strides become.
Very interesting.
In terms of quality gait, her free walk and flat-footed walk are the best she can do. However, while the flat walk and running walk are smooth, they are not the quality steps she is capable of.
Here’s a photo of my naturally gaited Tennessee walking horse’s quality flat walk with contact during our session.
Random thoughts and questions about riding on a loose rein
Is contact required for quality smooth gaits or are the faster smoother gaits naturally shorter strided? If the latter, are we forcing our naturally gaited horses into positions that are not natural? Or is my naturally gaited horse just enjoying a break from the longer stride I had been working her in?
I hope this is helpful. Let me know your thoughts by sending a message.
Lady (naturally grade gaited horse) shown at a fox trot, Makana (naturally gaited Tennessee Walking Horse) shown at a flat walk and Marvel (naturally gaited Tennessee Walking Horse / Spotted Saddle Horse) shown at a dog walk.
From me and my furry friends to you and yours, have a Merry Christmas and a happy new year!
—Jennifer Klitkze
I hope this is helpful. Let me know your thoughts by sending a message.
If I encounter resistance in French dressage, does it mean I am doing it wrong? Or does it mean French dressage is not for naturally gaited horses? Is resistance to be expected? Then how can it be overcome?
Here’s my story…
Resolving Resistance with French Dressage
By Jennifer Klitzke
I have been inspired and have learned so much through my French dressage DVD and book study over the years. I love the harmony the riders have with their horses and how happy the horses express themselves. Thankfully, my horses are happy most of the time. However, resistance pops up when I ask for something new or challenging. How do I know? Their body language says, “NO!” When I ask, they immediately tense, swish their tail, or rush. This doesn’t look like the harmony I see on the DVDs.
Clearly, I am nowhere near the expertise of the French dressage masters shown on the DVDs. This makes me wonder: Am I doing French dressage wrong when I experience resistance? Am I the one creating the resistance? How do I negotiate moving forward in training with my naturally gaited horses without resistance? Is a resistant-free relationship with horses possible? Have my naturally gaited horses reached their fullest potential?
Or could it be resistance is part of any relationship―horses and humans? The differences are whether I acknowledge or avoid resistance and how I work through it.
Think about it. How successful is avoiding conflict with the people in our lives? Every time we avoid conflict or pretend it isn’t there, the conflict doesn’t go away. It seems to grow bigger when unaddressed. A small conflict becomes all consuming. Now we wish we had addressed it when it was a small matter, right? I wonder if this could be the same for conflict with our horses?
Perhaps resistance means a need for clarification. Perhaps resistance means, let’s slow down, take it step by step and better understand each other. Let’s negotiate through this to a positive outcome where our relationship can be even better on the other side. Perhaps resistance is an opportunity to help my horses experience the potential they haven’t yet realized. Perhaps resistance is an opportunity to seek others for more education to better communicate with my horse.
My naturally gaited Tennessee Walking Horse, Makana, is light to the hand at the halt and walk, yet heavier at a flat walk and canter. I feel like I am in a perpetual demi arret (lifting of the hands). I wonder, “Am I doing French dressage wrong? Is French dressage not for naturally gaited horses?”
For my naturally gaited horse Lady, we have made tremendous improvement this summer by applying French dressage: acceptance of the bit, relaxation of the jaw, tasting the bit, flexions and counter bend turns to move the shoulders. We have established a light following contact with the reins at a halt and walk. Yet, when we move from walk to fox trot, she gets heavy in my hands unless I ride her in a floppy rein. I feel like I am doing a perpetual demi arret to keep her from leaning on my hands. Again, I wonder, “Am I doing French dressage wrong? Is French dressage not for naturally gaited horses?”
Or could it be a mix of application and communication through conflict?
Meeting resistance with dialogue
In October 2020, I was thrilled to bring my naturally gaited Tennessee walking horse, Makana, to another French dressage clinic with Linda Kaye Hollingsworth Jones. In addition to my lessons and auditing the other rider’s sessions, I brought my questions.
Linda has forty years of horse training experience and rode each horse to help instruct the rider. She quickly discovered the horse’s asymmetry to help the rider develop a program that can improve the horse’s balance, strength and flexibility.
What do you think occurred each time asymmetry was addressed with a horse? Resistance. For me, watching her calmly address and resolve resistance with French dressage answered many of my questions.
I witnessed astonishing transformations as Linda worked with each horse through resistance. For some horses, it meant stepping under the body with the inside hind leg an inch or two more for greater collection and expression. For others, it meant lightness to the leg bringing responsiveness to the lightest cue. For others it meant clarifying aids.
Yes, resistance is a realistic part training horses and French dressage is a humane and kind way to work through it for the best outcome.
Afterwards, one of the auditors asked, “How do you know if the resistance means the horse is unclear or unable to do what is requested?”
“Great question,” Linda replied, “Forty years of horse training.”
Linda’s answer is why I keep pursuing more knowledge through reading books, watching DVDs and taking lessons.
Effective Timing of the Aids
In terms of the demi arret (upward actions with the rein(s) to say to the horse “stop leaning on the bit”), the trotting horse riders struggled with heaviness in trot and canter just as I have in gait and canter. Linda helped us understand the importance of effective timing in the demi arret and décent des mains (stop acting with the hands). The demi arret needs to be applied BEFORE the horse thinks about leaning on the bit and BEFORE the horse is heavy.
Seeing that both resistance and heaviness exist with the non-gaited horses encouraged me to know this is not a gaited horse issue.
Downward canter transition without collapsing onto the forehand.
Linda coached me and my naturally gaited Tennessee Walking Horse through resistance to a better outcome. Traver-walk transitions began to transform Makana’s lateral left lead canter into a more quality three-beat canter. The pro-active pre-timing and application of our demi arret and décent des mains kept our canter light. Our canter transitions and piaffe quality had improved over the previous clinic.
For me, this clinic answered my questions. French dressage is a way to resolve resistance in the most humane way to a better outcome instead of avoiding conflict and staying stuck. Persevering with an instructor who is in the know helps me discern what is possible and dialogue through conflict to a better ending.
Resistance doesn’t look like harmony. Neither does avoidance. When resistance is met with understanding, kindness, and an educated rider, resistance leads to harmony.
Yes, French dressage is for naturally gaited horses, too! Thanks to French dressage, we are working on upper-level movements, such as shoulder-in, haunches-in, renver, half pass, walk pirouettes, counted walk, half steps, and piaffe which are improving her balance and the quality of her canter.
Piaffe is a great exercise for the naturally gaited horse to improve canter quality and diagonalize lateral gaits.
I hope this is helpful. Let me know your thoughts by sending a message.
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