The Marchador gait is a NATURAL gait. There are two gaits represented in the breed. No special bit, farrier work or saddle is required to put the horse into gait.
Some Marchador horses are truly lateral gaited (PICADA- pi-ca-dah) like the other PASO breeds, and
some Marchadors have a unique marching gait that has diagonal couplets (BATIDA- ba-chi-da). There are opinions
that one is better than another.
“You say tamato and I say tomato”.
Picada, batida. The real question is are they comfortable to you? You can find smooth, rythmic gait in
either lateral or diagonal horses. The smoothest horses are ones that have
three feet on the ground more often. This can be felt by the rider, seen on
slow videotape or by analysis of a recording of the hoofbeats.
Experiencing both gaits is encouraged to decide on what you want in your
perfect horse. Some Marchador horses can do both gaits or be trained to perform both. Even the roughest Marchador is still easy to sit and
enjoy. The Brazilians call it a "comfortable way of going". We regularly ride both
gaits bareback and bridleless.
Take a look….
We have an entire collection of our horses out on YOUTUBE.COM. Search for our specific horses by name. For an example of the marcha picada, here are 2 examples:
BELLA VIDEO or ARTEMIS VIDEO. To view an examples of the marcha batida, watch BRASILIA VIDEO or KOYOTE VIDEO
For a detailed write-up of the gaits, the speed, the footfall patterns etc, send us an email or click on this link FUTURE FOAL to see our new website where we have a pdf document about the MM gaits.
Batida gait – Diagonal couplets; triple hoof support
Picada gait – lateral four-beat gait; triple hoof support
In
Portuguese, picada stands for a light
touch and of the two marchas, the marcha picada is a bit smoother.
It is a broken pace and therefore creates little vertical movement. This gait
is characterized by the movement of the animal's legs in a lateral sequence,
with periods of triple hoof support. The
gait can be sustained for long periods of time, allowing the rider hours of
enjoyable riding with little discomfort. The timing of foot falls is similar to
the pasollano of the
Peruvian Paso Horse.
Batida means to hit and
describes the gait considered to be a broken trot. It is characterized by the
movements of the legs in a diagonal pattern, also with moments of triple
support and a four beat sequence. This
gait, unlike a trot, shows very little suspension (all the legs in the air) as
the horses are always in contact with the ground. This creates stability and
smoothness. The longer and more frequent the moments of triple hooves support
are, the more comfortable the gait will be. On flat ground, performing the batida at a normal speed,
the hind foot overreaches the track of the forefoot on the same side, adding to
the smoothness of the ride.
Often the choice of which gait is determined by riding discipline and what you want to do with the horse. In most cases, the batida horses would be my horse of choice for endurance, competitive trail and some of the performance sports. For pure pleasure and trail, or those champagne classes at the show, the picada gait may be the best.
So, come and try them on for size!
At Summerwind, we are committed to representing both gaits and strive to
produce the smoothest ATHLETIC horse in our breeding program, whether the
natural gait is batida or picada.
For more information on the gait, contact us for more videos, our gait analysis document or to just to talk further.