I often see confusion in people over horses ‘running’ and ‘lengthening’: they can’t tell the difference between the 2. In this post, I’m really not only going to explain these 2 terms, I will also shed a bit of light on 2 other terms: ‘medium gaits’ and ‘extended gaits’.

Running

When your pony reacts to your cue to lengthen frame and walk and the result is that his speed (rate at which the rhythm repeats) gets quicker, your horse is not increasing. He’s running.

Increasing

When your horse lengthens effectively, he’s essentially stretching out his frame and stride as much as he can without changing his rhythm or speed, at a slightly early part of the coaching (the 1st level or thereabouts). What this achieves is that each stride covers more ground.

Lengthenings derive from working trots and canters. The horse is usually in what could be called ‘horizontal balance’ while on working gaits, and he is going to remain that way while extending. By ‘horizontal balance’ I mean that the horse’s topline just about is parallel to the ground.

Medium gaits

At a medium gait, your horse will have lengthened his frame and stride moderately without changing rhythm or tempo. A medium gait falls between a collected gait and an extended gait where length of frame and strides is concerned, and has a rounded movement as compared to extended gaits.

Medium gaits arise from collected gaits and therefore the horse’s balance differs substantially from what it is with lengthenings. The horse’s topline is more curved than it seems with an extending. More like a compressed spring being held in the front with leg driving the hindquaters forward.

Extended gaits

When your pony is in an extended gait, he has lengthened his frame and strides to the maximum, without changing rhythm or tempo.

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