Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 20, 1994 TAG: 9407150021
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KAREN L. DAVIS SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Less familiar to most spectators, those fancy three- and five-gaited horses must exhibit unique qualities. Show judges look for brilliant action, balanced animation and beauty. The breed of horse shown is the American Saddlebred, developed by Kentucky pioneers who desired an all-around utility horse comfortable and strong enough to ride the trails and work the plantations, yet stylish enough to pull fancy buggies.
The three-gaited American Saddlebred exhibits the three natural gaits - walk, trot and canter - in a collected manner with high knee and hock action. The hocks are the joints corresponding to the knees on the hind legs.
The five-gaited saddle horse exhibits at the three natural gaits, plus two man-made gaits, the slow gait and the rack. The two gaits are similar, except the rack is faster. In both, the knee and hock action should be high and snappy.
In all gaits, the head should be high, with ears alert, giving an overall air of brilliance. At the trot, the hocks should come well up under the horse instead of out behind and describe a high circular motion, as if the horse were pedaling a bicycle. The knees should come up higher than the hocks.
The ability to learn the slow gait and rack is inherent in the American Saddlebred bloodlines, but it takes the skills of a good trainer to bring out that ability. Not all Saddlebreds readily learn the man-made gaits, however. Some horses have a natural tendency to rack, and some don't. That's why there are three-gaited and five-gaited classes.
The tendency to rack shows up early in the young horse. ``You can tell by the shape of the body and the way they move whether they'll rack,'' said Karen Waldron, co-owner of Bent Tree Farm in Shawsville.
Waldron has ridden several of her horses to world championships at the Kentucky State Fair World Championship Horse Show in Louisville, the Superbowl of the saddle horse world.
She thinks of Saddlebreds as ``athletes in a different direction. Rather than trying to force an animal to be what we want it to be, we watch that animal and note its particular talents and tendencies. Then through training and conditioning, we allow that animal to become its best.''
Because horses are athletes, she likens the use of any artificial training aid to a person who trains and conditions his body with weights. For example, pads and weights added to the shoes affect the stride and knee action, causing a horse to lift its feet higher and reach farther from the shoulder.
``Some horses have more natural ability than others,'' and therefore, don't require as much in the way of special shoeing to enhance their movement, said Waldron's trainer, Lee Adams.
To protect their front feet from getting clipped by the back feet during their flashy performances, five-gaited horses are shown wearing white, bell-shaped quarter boots. They also are shown with a full mane and set tail, while the mane of a three-gaited horse is roached, or clipped short, to show off the breed's beautiful, arched neck.
Setting tails to achieve higher carriage is a widely misunderstood practice outside the saddle horse arena. The tails are not broken, as many people mistakenly believe.
The procedure involves ``nicking the ligaments at the base of the tail,'' Adams said. The area is numbed prior to making the small incision so that the horse feels no pain. Afterward, the horse wears a tail set device to stretch the ligaments until it becomes accustomed to carrying its tail high.
``The purpose of the higher tail set is to balance the looks of the horse with its high head carriage,'' Waldron said.
A versatile breed, Saddlebreds also are shown in fine harness, western, park, pleasure, country pleasure and saddle seat equitation classes. The fine harness horse is driven to a light buggy and judged at the walk and trot for action and show ring presence. Western classes, of course, require western tack and costumes.
Park horses are three-gaited horses shown with full mane and natural tail and often are being prepared for future transition to performance or pleasure sections. The pleasure class horse, shown with full mane and natural tail, must flat walk when asked, with no prancing, and exemplify the calm manners and polish desired in a fine pleasure riding horse. Horses shown in country pleasure classes exhibit similar qualities, except they are flat-shod, that is, they have no pads or weights in their shoes.
In saddle seat equitation classes, the rider's grace, style and ability to control the horse are judged. Riders sometimes are asked to perform figure eights, ride without stirrups or change horses. Besides saddle seat, two other basic equitation styles are hunt seat (jumping) and stock seat (western).
Three- and five-gaited saddle ponies are smaller versions of the saddle horses. They are Saddlebred-type ponies, but they do not have to be registered. When full grown, a pony cannot stand taller than 14.2 hands - or 58 inches - from the ground to the withers.
Hackney Ponies also are high steppers in the show ring, showing the same snappy knee and hock action that Saddlebreds display. Waldron will show Bent Tree Farm's Vindicator, the number one Hackney Futurity Stallion in the nation for five years in a row and a World Champion Harness Pony Stallion for four years.
Bred to be fine carriage ponies, Hackneys are shown pulling a small buggy called a viceroy. Depending on the class, they may be shown with full mane and tail or braided mane and docked tail. The breed originated in England and is a smaller version of the Hackney Horse.
Hackneys also can be shown as roadster ponies, while the roadster horse division is for Standardbred-type horses, noted for their racing speed at the trot. Drivers wear silks, sit in a bike and show their entries at the jog-trot, road gait and at speed. The animals must not break from a fast trot into a gallop. Roadsters are shown under saddle, too, at the same gaits as when driven.
Horses shown in the racking division must be registered with the Racking Horse Breeders' Association of America. A racking horse usually is crossbred with a Tennessee Walking Horse or double registered as such. Unlike other breeds that rack, the true racking horse's gait is not man-made.
The breed is shown at the show walk, slow rack and fast rack.
Tobie Bentz of Roanoke County, owner of Nobody's Business, the 1991 world champion racking horse in the juvenile 12 and under category, describes all three show gaits as a rack ``going from first gear, to second gear, and finally into third gear. They must move from one gait to the next on cue with smooth transitions.''
Racking horses do not exhibit the high hock action that the Saddlebreds display. Their heads should not bob, and their tails are not set.
The racking horses show this evening. The Saddlebreds show at various times through the week with the championships held Saturday evening.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***