speech #6, revised for liberty village practice session.

Ter-Rot. Ter-Rot
waaaaal-k. waaaaal-k.
whoa. walk (!) on.

Fellow Toastmasters/Guests..

Horses respond not just to body language but to vocal variety. they recognize tone and pitch and today i will teach you the commands to obtain the various gaits of the horse. And since I don't have a pony in the room to let you see or hear the unique rhythm of each pace, we are going to incorporate some audience participation and body percussion into the program!!!

Gaits are the different paces by which a horse moves himself and can be roughly categorized into 3 ordinary ones that an average horse will do without special training. (there are several other gaits which usually require training and/or special breeding to enable). i count the gallop a variation of the canter, so in increasing order of speed, i like to teach that the gaits are: walk, trot, and canter.

1. Ter-Rot smack, clap, up, down:1.2 do this with me for a minute.
- a two time or two beat pace where the horse’s legs moving in pairs
- like this, stepping from one diagonal to the other
- twice as fast as a walk, about 6 miles per hour.
- very very bouncy and most of the stories about horses galloping off with their tourist trail riders are actually horses breaking into trot.


2. waaaaaaal-k. waaaaaaaaaaaaaaal-k. Snap snap snap snap
- four time movement with each leg moving individually in a clear one-two-three-four beat
- slow gait, matches space and timing of human walk, nearly 3 mph
- each of feet come down as they are lifted
- right fore, left hind, left fore, right hind


3. Now to STOP a horse when riding you must remember: Sit down, heels down, keep back straight and hold/pull. The verbal command to halt. “Whoa”. Everyone say this. Say Whoa. If you ever go on a trail ride or face a runaway horse it could come in handy. And now while we’re safely at a halt, let’s talk about the position in which the rider sits:
- governed by the actions to communicate with the horse correctly, based on BALANCE rather than grip. - symmetry is also really important, model position, straight line thing.


5. Back to an area of my expertise - my favorite average joe horse pace,
three distinct audible beats, called the CAN-ter.
- like a waltz or ¾ time since there is a moment of suspension, all the feet are off the ground.
- usually about 10 miles/hour.
- easy to remember the footfall, because it all starts with the rider’s position for the transition.
You put your outside leg back behind the girth blah blah blah -sit up tall in the saddle keeping your center of gravity over the horse's center of gravity.

cheating in the mounted games at the last myrddin stable christmas party story in the hopes each rider-on-the-opposing team penalties for breaking out of trot.

*
Don’t horses sound fun? Thank you for letting me practice explaining the gaits of the horse, without a horse. I hope that the next time I try out this presentation I have a real live horse standing by to put thru his paces. Until then, you should get out riding!!!