Many people overlook the sequence of a horse’s gaits and their importance. When I teach clinics, riders almost always want to work on more advanced movements like pirouettes, half-passes and changes. But problems with more complicated movements are often due to a lack of understanding of the basics. Most likely the rider and horse haven’t been in unison, but it didn’t become apparent until the rider asked for a more refined response from the horse.

If your horse doesn’t respond to your aids, it’s usually not because he doesn’t feel like it; it’s because you asked him to make an adjustment during the phase of the stride when he cannot do so. This is why the timing of the aids is so crucial. You must know at what point during the stride to use your aids so the horse can react. 

In this article, I’ll explain the sequence and mechanism, or how the propulsion of the gait affects the entire body of the horse, of the walk, trot and canter, and how to time your aids to effectively communicate with your horse. I’ll also discuss common problems in each gait and ways to improve them.

The Walk

The walk is a four-beat gait, which means each leg moves independently. In all gaits, the sequence of the stride starts with the outside hind leg. In walk, the order of footfalls, meaning the order that each hoof touches the ground, are outside hind leg, outside front leg, inside hind leg, inside front leg. The middle of the horse’s topline carries the gait forward, which creates a wave of motion through his back. 

The horse must be able to walk straight on a long rein without any influence from the rider. Think about lining up your tailbone to his tail and your belly button to his poll. Relax your lower back and seat so that you follow the natural motion of the horse’s walk, making sure your pelvis isn’t swaying from left to right. Instead, follow the horse’s motion from the middle of your lower back so he can be as symmetrical as possible.

An often-encountered issue in the walk occurs when the rider keeps the horse’s neck too short or low. Riders tend to feel the horse is not forward enough from the hind legs, but it is almost always that the horse is underreaching with his front legs. Riders will then ask the horse to move his legs quicker, but the tension from the horse’s over-shortened neck will block him through the topline and cause him to jig. Instead, if the front legs reach forward, the hind legs can then come under the body, which allows unobstructed motion through the topline. 

To lengthen the step of the front legs, allow the horse to be longer in his neck by lengthening the reins. Be sure to stay over the center of the horse’s gravity, which is right underneath your seat bones. While staying supple in your seat, bring your lower legs forward and imagine you are bumping the horse’s front legs out in front of you. 

An important skill is being able to shorten the stride length of the walk without losing forward motion, or cause the walk to lose its forward beats. The walk must stay pure as it is the foundation of more advanced movements such as piaffe. To do this, elongate your torso and become taller in the saddle while keeping your back supple. This will make the motion of your pelvis shorter, and the horse will recognize the smaller motion and will mimic it. Also make sure you aren’t shortening the topline more than the stride length, as the two must be equal to each other. The stride length must be shorted before shortening the reins in order for the topline to support his gait.  This is why so many horses lose the quality of their walk as soon as the rider gathers the reins. 

The Trot

The trot is two-beat gait of diagonal pairs that has a moment of suspension. In the first sequence of the trot stride, the outside hind leg and the inside front leg push off. Then, the horse’s back rises, and all four feet are off the ground. Finally, the inside hind leg and outside front leg push the horse forward and upward again. The push of the stride and the actual airtime are equal. 

Riders often struggle with recognizing the suspension in the trot as forward energy. They send the horse into too fast of a tempo because they’re not able to absorb or recognize the moment of suspension. This has the opposite effect. The rider thinks they are adding energy, but they are actually taking away the energy because the suspension is 50% of the horse’s power in the trot.

Most riders incorrectly wait for the suspension to propel their seat upward. But if you wait for the moment when the horse lifts his back and comes off the ground, you are behind the motion. This has a snowball effect because if your seat is out of unison and you give a rein, leg or weight aid, the aids will also be slightly behind the motion. When the horse doesn’t respond, you might attempt to give a stronger aid, but in the same exact timing, and it will become even harder to get a reaction from the horse.

Instead, to be in sync with the moment of suspension, you should rise in unison with the outer hind leg as it pushes off the ground—don’t wait to be bumped out of the saddle by the lift of the back, or suspension. If you wait until the stride is already in progress, you can no longer influence it. Then, you must wait for the next stride if you want to make an adjustment. You’ll know your timing is off if you feel a double bounce or jarring motion in your seat either in the down- or up-phase of the stride. Being able to preserve the suspension of the trot correctly is the foundation for the passage and extensions. 

The Canter

The canter is a three-beat gait. The first footfall of the canter is the outside hind leg. The second sequence is the inside hind leg and outside front leg, followed by the inside front leg. So, if you are picking up the left lead, the footfalls start with the right hind. Like in trot, there is a moment of suspension in canter. But in the canter, the suspension is between strides. The horse will canter one stride, be in a moment of suspension, then start the next stride. The canter is a directional gait, which means the horse is doing two different things with his left and right side (unlike the trot and walk which are nondirectional, meaning the horse is doing the same thing on both sides of his body).

When asking for the canter, focus on staying connected to the horse’s outside hind leg with your outside seat bone and hip as you give the canter aid. Just like in trot, you need to be in unison with the start—or the very first footfall—of the stride. One of the problems I see is riders ask for the canter before they’ve established alignment and balance in their body and will start rotating their upper body to the inside. This causes the outside hind leg to be disengaged. As soon as the outside hind leg is disengaged, all the weight shifts to the inside of the horse. Then, you’ll lose the forward, upward motion of the inside of the horse’s back, shoulder and front leg. 

To ensure the horse can canter without struggling against your movement, keep your outside shoulder blade and lat muscles engaged throughout the stride so the upper body doesn’t rotate to the inside. When the upper body and pelvis rotate to the inside, you sit in opposition to the motion of the canter. This leads to the horse losing the mechanism in his back because the rider’s pelvis isn’t accommodating the motion. This can make the rider feel as if their pelvis is moving like the agitator in a washing machine. The rider must be supple but strong to sustain the correct motion in their pelvis, so the motion of the horse’s back can support the stride. If you have the feeling of your seat bones being bumped out of the saddle—and therefore off the outside hind leg—in the push phase of the canter, you may fall forward during the upward phase of the stride, which will cause you to fall behind the motion of the canter. 

Also be sure you aren’t gripping or overusing your outside leg in your canter depart, because when you overuse the outside leg this will push you off your outside seat bone which makes it impossible for you to follow the other two sequences of the stride and then you will instinctively start driving to keep the horse from stopping. The driving motion can often lead to feeling like you’re on a rocking horse.

One of my favorite sayings is, “You have to be the way you want the horse to become.” I hope these examples will help you be more in sync with your horse’s gaits so he can be better able to respond to your aids. 

Sidebar: Basics for Effective Communication

It’s important to achieve alignment and balance in your position so you can communicate clearly with your horse. Start by working on being in control of big muscles and joints in your body, such as your legs, obliques, latissimus dorsi (or “lats”), arms and elbows, and then you can start targeting the small muscles and joints like the wrists, fingers, ankles and toes. 

I’m not a big fan of lots of hand movement, like squeezing your fingers, because your big joints and muscles are not supple and stable. Using the very small joints and muscles in your hand are not going to override the instability of the big muscles. The horse won’t be able to dissect that information.

Sidebar: Ride Your Horse Square 

Always ride the horse square, like he has four corners, with equal weight on all four feet. The left front leg is under the left shoulder blade, the right front leg is under the right shoulder blade, the left hind leg is under the left hip and the right hind leg is under the right hip, with a lined-up topline. He should feel level on both straight and curved lines. Think about it like a table. You don’t want the table to have one leg that’s a little bit shorter than the others because the table will tip. 

About Lena Wedenmark

Lena Wedenmark is a professional dressage rider, trainer, clinician and U.S. Dressage Federation instructor certified through Fourth Level. She lives in Wellington, Florida. 

To watch videos of Lena Wedenmark teaching the sequence of gaits and proper timing of aids, subscribe to EQUESTRIAN+ (equestrianplus.com). Use code LENA15 for 15% off your first month’s subscription.

To read Lena Wedenmark’s article about how to bring yourself into alignment, balance and relaxation, go to practicalhorseman.com.

This article originally appeared in the Winter 2024 issue of Practical Horseman.