Chris Hector asked Ingrid Klimke: With a young horse, which is more important to have, a good natural canter, or a flash trot?

“The canter and the walk are both gaits you can’t improve by good riding, you can improve them a bit, but you are not going to all-of-a-sudden create a spectacular walk, if the walk is not by nature so good, and it is the same with the canter.

But the trot, maybe you can’t get a normal trot really expressive, but you can get rhythm and you can always improve it. The more they learn to sit on the hocks, the more strength they get, the more they come into self balance and they build strong hind leg and back muscles, through lots of transitions, half steps in and out, then you can really improve the trot a lot.”

Ingrid and Damons Divene as a young horse – the pastern angle of the inside hind leg shows where she is carrying the most weight…

“The hindlegs must be energetic under the centre of gravity, that means the hindquarters get much more muscle, the back gets so much stronger, and the horse really shows himself. The horse has to have energy from behind, the motor is the hindlegs.”

Ingrid and her eventer, Butts Abraxxas, a Thoroughbred with a good natural canter…

And the trot Ingrid was able to develop

https://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2017/10/brilliant-basics-with-ingrid-klimke-the-young-horse/