The walk is the most influential gait that the horse possesses. It is the most overlooked and under-credited of all gaits. Simple and slow, this powerful tool of a gait deserves to be explored.
The WALK is a 4 beat gait that can completely supple, strengthen, lengthen the entire body, not to mention how great it is for educating the horse (and rider) about feel, timing, the aids, and each individual body part.
You can have a lengthened, stretching walk. In this walk, your horse will be pushing and stretching its hind end. The spine will be rotating back and forth with each swing of the belly. The rib cage will start to relax and breaths will be deeper. The shoulders release and the neck lengthens. The poll starts to relax and open up. This is a STRONG walk. I call it a MARCHING walk or POWER-WALK. This specific walk will make your horse start to sweat after about 10-15 min.
The Collected or Counted walk is a wonderful tool to balance and strengthen your horse's core, postural muscles and help you as a rider to influence each and every part of the horse in motion. To learn about feel, to supple and educate your horse's mind. A great way to start "self-carriage". This is like Tai-Chi for your horse - slow, steady, breath, think, feel.
You can also do all the lateral movements at the walk. At different stride lengths, collected, and loose. To pinpoint the exact moments each limb is doing its job. To be able to slow down and teach each step how to be the most balanced and straight.
- How much Stronger would your horse be if you ONLY walked 5 days a week for 2 weeks straight?
- How much Straighter can your horse be if you worked at a walk for 80% of your ride time?
- Imagine the amount of feel you'd gain by slowing down and focusing on JUST the walk...
Often we want to work on "big" things, "flashy" or "fun" things, but what we end up improving is the walk. Without a quality walk, anything faster tends to be not as polished as it could be. The Walk is a foundational necessity. Working on it as often as you can, will improve your riding and your horse's education more than you would think possible.
I challenge you to 2 weeks at the walk, that's simply 10 rides. Use that time to really delve into the cracks in your horse's (and your own) foundation. Make a note about your rides, where you want to see improvement, and what you currently struggle with. Then after 2 weeks reflect on this. Take a before picture or video. IF you need help, PM me - this is a passion for me and the walk is one of the best gaits to work on that, by sheer side effect, improve everything else.