campaign to discredit the value of speed in the running walk.  The only problem that you will have is that you will also find Percherons and Clydesdales and Shetlands and rhinoceroses and gazelles that have a wonderful "new definition" running walk at two miles an hour.

Let's not argue.  If you want to breed natural gaited running walk horses, just get at least one horse that can hold its gait (any middle gait) at high speed.

The horses that you breed your strong gaited horse to should have the rest of the characteristics that you need in a running walk horse.  If your gaited horse is tight moving, breed it to a loose, long striding horse.  If your gaited horse is a tight moving fox trotter, breed it to a loose, long striding pacer.  If your gaited horse is an ugly, tight moving fox trotter, breed it to a beautiful, loose, long striding pacer.  If your gaited horse is a long backed, ugly, tight moving fox trotter, breed it to a short backed, beautiful, loose, long striding pacer.  (And don't forget disposition, soundness, heart, stamina, agility, color, and a few dozen other things that make a pleasure horse a pleasure to own.)

You will never accomplish all that you want in one generation.  In fact you will have a hard time to accomplish everything in ten generations unless you start with the very best breeding stock that you can find.  Take advantage of the progress that other breeders have made.  That is what pedigrees are for.  Trace the patterns of inheritance of certain characteristics to see how well established or strong they are in your breeding stock.  A mediocre horse from a good family is better than a good horse from a bad family as long as that horse has some strengths. 

Whenever possible breed strength to strength.  Whenever you have no options, breed strength to weakness.  Never breed weakness to weakness.  This should not even need to be stated,  but it never ceases to amaze me to see the number of breeders that are breeding beautiful, loose, long striding pacers to beautiful, loose, long striding pacers and trying to sell the foals to people for pleasure horses.  Someone recently asked me how to stop a certain beautiful, loose, long striding pacer from pacing.  There is only one totally effective way to stop any pacer from pacing and that is to shoot it.  It will never pace again.

Why don't breeders just breed horses that walk?  It can be done because it has been done.  If we had breeders that were actually breeding for the running walk we wouldn't need to do anything to make them walk.  Certain things could be done to

make them walk better, such as hoof angle, collection, etc. but if you had a pleasure horse that you could just get on and ride at the running walk, you would have something very valuable.

However, World Grand Champions and their offspring have much to offer the breeder of natural gaited horses because the conformation of the show horse of today has been developed to a much greater degree than at any time in the past.  (Occasionally you even find strong gait in some of these horses but it is very occasionally.)  The old bloodlines that are strong gaited almost never show good conformation of movement.  I hesitate to say never, but I will say that I have never seen excellent movement in a non-show-horse-bred animal except in video from 50 - 60 years ago. The best natural gaited horses that I have seen have always been combinations of good moving popular show horse lines (from Midnight Sun to the present) and strong gaited old bloodlines.

One of the pioneers of this type of breeding is Sylvia Crouter from Box Hanging Three Ranch in Wyoming.  Thirty or so years ago she bought HF Midnight Allen to breed to her good solid ranch stock and has produced hundreds of good moving natural gaited horses since.  We have in Alberta a number of good moving horses that are crosses between show horse lines and old time strong gaited lines.  I am not here to promote anybody's horses, but just look around for yourself.

Some are always better than others but if you have all the ingredients of gait in your breeding stock you have at least a chance of success.  When you have only one of the two important ingredients, you have a 100 percent chance of failure.  When you breed strong gaited, tight moving, stiff, choppy, short striding horses to strong gaited, tight moving, stiff, choppy, short striding horses you have no chance of breeding a good moving running walk horse.

Next issue:  Conformation of Movement