Part of the educational need Dr. Deb Bennett has noticed working in the equine industry over the past 40 years is to help people learn what quality movement “at gait” looks like. Quality ambling is very different from lame movement.

“Those new to the industry are in particular need of advice, because the sales pitch often used to market amblers to beginners is the ride is smoother and less jarring than trotting,” writes the founder of the Equine Studies Institute. “This is true only if the person cannot or will not learn how to post to the trot. Further, although in most horses the trot is rough and difficult to sit, the collected trot of a correctly trained horse is delightfully elastic and easy to sit. Conversely, not all amblers perform their gait particularly well, and there are many with stiff backs and necks that are rougher than they should be because they either bounce up and down behind or else pace.

When Jorge DeMoya, a famous breeder, judge and educator of Paso Finos, moved his broodmares to Australia, one of the first things he did was to attend the Australian National Horse Show, where he saw the national champion Australian Stock Horse, nominally a trotting breed. He immediately purchased this stallion, saying, “These are horses very much like those that my Cuban grandfather bred.” Historically, the Morgan, Cuban and Puerto Rican Paso horses and the Australian Stock Horse share Morgan ancestry, which includes the DMRT-3 STOP gene.

“DeMoya immediately began using the Stock Horse on his Paso Fino mares, getting fabulous results: bigger, stronger, more athletic and more correct conformation coupled with gaiting ability, which the expert trainer — and his students — could shape into whatever particular form they wanted. The bottom line — quality movement is founded upon the animal’s genetically-based ability to coordinate laterally, but is maintained over time, not by continually riding the horse at one gait, but by durable and substantial bone structure and level overall body balance coupled with the rider’s knowledge, skill and feel, especially in lateral bending, change-ups and transitions.”

For further information on how farriers & vets identify quality in the four-sounded beat gait, read Dr. Bennett’s “The Spectrum of Ambling Horse Gaits”, featured in the May/June 2026 issue of American Farriers Journal.