What can ruin a horse's walk?

The walk is the most vulnerable of the three basic gaits to training damage, and it is the gait most frequently ruined — often inadvertently and often by well-intentioned training that addresses other aspects of the horse's way of going while destroying the natural correct four-beat footfall sequence of the walk in the process. This vulnerability exists because the walk has no moment of suspension — unlike the trot and canter which have built-in spring and impulsion that help maintain their rhythm under training pressure, the walk depends entirely on the horse's relaxation, natural rhythm, and freedom through the topline to maintain its correct footfall sequence. The most common walk destroyer is collection work applied too early and too strongly in the walk before the horse has the strength, the suppleness, and the genuine throughness to maintain the correct footfall sequence under the increased demands of collection. When a horse that lacks the physical development for true walk collection is compressed from the front through strong rein contact while leg pressure maintains forward energy, the natural four-beat sequence frequently collapses into a two-beat almost lateral gait where the diagonal pairs of legs begin moving nearly simultaneously rather than in the clear four-beat sequence of a correct walk. This lateral walk — sometimes called a pacing walk — is one of the most persistent training-induced gaits because the horse has established the neurological pattern of the incorrect footfall through repetition of the incorrect movement under collection pressure. Tension is the second major walk destroyer. A tense horse cannot swing freely through his back, and a horse that cannot swing through his back cannot produce the four-beat walk that requires each hindleg to step freely under the body with a rolling following motion through the topline. The horse that is anxious about the work, the environment, or the training demands produces a tight short shuffling walk that loses the clear four-beat sequence as the tension restricts the freedom of movement the correct walk requires. This walk improves dramatically when the tension is addressed — through correct warmup, through environments and exercises that reduce anxiety, and through patient training that keeps the demands within the horse's current emotional capacity. Overworking the walk directly is a training error less obvious than the previous two but equally damaging. The classical training wisdom of not working the walk too much — of developing collection through trot and canter work and allowing the walk to benefit indirectly from the development of the other gaits — exists specifically because the walk is so easily damaged by direct collection work and so reliably improved by the suppleness, engagement, and through connection that correct trot and canter work develops. Ride the walk frequently for warmup, for rest, and for transitions, but resist the temptation to spend long periods working on the collected walk until the horse's overall development genuinely supports that work.