There are lateral gaits and/or diagonal gaits that are required performance of the horses we shoe or trim. Some are natural lateral gaits, like Icelandic and Paso Fino horses, and some are learned, like five-gaited Saddlebred horses. This brief treatise will be on the diagonal gait of trot.

A diagonal gait, that when defined, should be symmetrical in sight and sound as we watch the horse perform it (provided the horse is not lame). Discrepancies of this gait can be different weight-bearing times, impact differences on the diagonal pairs and swing phase timing differences (where the horse must hold a leg in the air shortly to time the paired diagonal legs’ impact).

Some locomotion parameters define what is a correct trot gait and what is not. The defined trot gait in a free-moving sound horse is symmetrical in weight-bearing time, impact/departure timing (that is both diagonal feet impact and depart the ground at the same time) and swing phase, which also includes the suspension phase.

These symmetrical observations would be truer and easier to hear and see without a rider and…