Trote y Troche Horses

Date of Birth: February 20, 1954
Place of Birth: Bolivar, Department of Antioquia
Gait: Trote, Trocha, Galope and Paso Fino
Color: Palomino
Breeder: Don Oscar Veléz
Colombian Registry Number: FC9

Sire: Rey Cometa, son of Cometa.
Mare: La Danesa, daughter of Lusitano (a horse used in Bullfights) and La Diana (a Paso Fino mare).

Don Danilo i

s the only horse that has been known for his ability to perform the four Colombian gaits: Trote, Trocha, Galope and Paso Fino; he was always already to perform the gait that his trainer gave orders to execute. In his time, his name was mentioned throughout all the Colombian horse world, both in Colombia and in the United States.

He was bred in “Los Farallones” farm, located in the town of Bolivar, Department of Antioquia, Colombia; by “Don Oscar Veléz”, a famous horse breeder, the 20th of February 1954. His first trainer was a man called Gonzalo Calad, who made the horse execute the Trote and Galope gait. But then, it became to be trained by the famous and recognized “Maestro Alfredo Gallego”, who started the horse in the Trocha gait. At age of four, Don Danilo was presented in his first exposition in the city of Medellín, Colombia, there he was decelerated Grand Champion. Since this moment, Don Danilo had won all the re

wards and prizes that the Colombian Horse Associations could give to a horse for its qualities; in this way, he was declared “Out of Contest” in the year 1965 in the Exposition of Bogotá.

Don Danilo was sold and bought a few times by different people and finally he was bought by “Don Luis Peña Duque” during Armenia’s Exposition for $120 Colombian pesos of this time, which was a considerable price. He took the horse to his farm in the city of Girardot, where he treated him as a real king. Adolfo Gomez, who was considered one of the best Colombian trainers, became to be his new fortunate trainer.

On Friday, the 30th of July, 1976 at 3:00 p.m., the great Don Danilo died. A big one had left, he had gone; but thanks to God and to his genetical potential Don Danilo had left an enormous dynasty of horses, most of them were declared “Out of Contest” like their sire. Some of his famous offspring are: El Arco, Altanero, Candidato, Canario, Don Camilo, Consul, Picasso, Pegasso, Rebelde, La Sherezada, Cumparcita, La Triana, Rosario, Parrandera, and more that there is not enough space to mention them. Most of these horses were Trocha and Trocha & Galope horses.

Tupac Amaru was an extremely famous trochador Feuera de Concurso that could perform all the modalities. He was so loved by the Colombians and his owner that he is on display in a museum.

*Click on his photo to see his grandson, our colt for sale - El Padrino del Caribe... El Padrino also carries the bloodlines of Don Danilo!

by Raul Estrada L.
Civil Engineer at the University of Cauca, Colombia
National Equine Judge
Translated by Kimberly Brackman

If we undertake an investigation in the Americas regarding the abundance and quality of their horses, it is surprising the degree of excellence which our country has achieved in the breeding and training of this noble animal. The classic fino, the trocha, the trot and the smooth gallop are airs which our horses perform far superior to what can be observed in other countries, a phenomenon inevitably linked to the origin of the different breeds that perform each movement and the quality and perfection that the Colombian man has imprinted on their rhythm. The results do not permit us to differentiate between these two reasons.

First of all it is of paramount importance to recount the evolution of our horse from its arrival in America on the second voyage of Christopher Columbus up to the present moment when the introduction of Spanish stallions brought by rejoneadores (horseback riders in the bullring) and plantation owners has modified some fundamental characteristics of the original gaits.

By the 15th century the domination of the Iberian Peninsula by the Moors was ending. The Moors, Arab by language, were groups of Mohammedans that inhabited the Barbary Coast or the southern Mediterranean coast consisting of Morocco, Algiers, Tunis and parts of Libya. From the 7th century on, they had imported to the Spanish peninsula a very considerable part of their culture, clearly reflected in the language, architecture and in many present-day customs not only in Spain but also in America. As part of that contribution the Barb horse also arrived from Northern Africa, according to very reliable sources in numbers exceeding 300,000 animals, and greatly contributed to the success of the discovery and conquest of the new continent.

As the Argentinean horse scientist Angel Cabrera states, the latter was "...a Jennet whose principal center of production was logically Andalusia, for there the Moslem domination lasted the longest, This horse, whose fame spread throughout the entire world because of its exceptional qualities and, in the opinion of Houel, was never surpassed by any other breed, was the horse that was predominant in Spain during the age of the discovery and conquest of America. We must suppose that this was also the type of horse the Spaniards brought to the New World since it was the horse used by the mounted soldier. All the historians, when speaking of the mounted forces which took part in the conquest, make it clear that they were composed of mounted lances like the troops brought by Columbus. And;, the investigator continues, "regarding the conformation of the Spanish horse of those centuries, judging by the testimonies and writings of the period, it was a rather small animal, a perfect mesomorphic type, generally a little close to the ground with an ample torso, a wide, muscular and somewhat short chest, a rounded and sloping croup, and a rather low set tail-these last two traits characteristic of the Barb. The head was short with a straight profile, the forehead somewhat convex and sunken at the base of the nostrils but never Roman-nosed." To that description we can add, because of the affirmations off the equine scientist Luis Ascasubi and the aforementioned Cabrera, that it was a horse characterized by magnificent brio, docility of temperament, and unequaled ability to withstand the harshness of the tropics and all kinds of dietary sufferings and deprivations.

And to complete the identification of those first equines in America, the writers noted, "their movements were limited to the amble (pace) or the andadura (another name for pace), characterized by the alternate striking upon the ground of each lateral pair of legs one after the other, each lateral pair producing one sound, to complete the movement in two beats."

As can be observed, these conformational traits obviously coincide with those of the Colombian horse before 1950 and, through later analysis; we see how this animal's quality of movement, modified by the education and control of our trainers, is intimately related to their agility, their brio, and their amble. If the Spanish had brought over a larger but less courageous horse instead of the Barb, perhaps the conquest of the continent would have gone differently or there would have been a delay in growth and progress that followed the arrival of Columbus.

This Barb horse, which as noted above moved laterally, later joined with the Arab and the Thoroughbred to form the trilogy of breeds which gave rise to the different characteristics of the present-day riding horse. And as we can clearly see as we study the airs or gaits of the horse, the amble (pace) was the beginning or the raw material for the formation of the fino gait in the Americas where there was more concern with the smoothness of the native horse, movements. Colombia, Venezuela, and Puerto Rico concentrated on the paso fino gait, Peru on the Peruvian paso gait. In contrast to the Barb, the Arab and Thoroughbred moved in a diagonal trot, moving a diagonal pair of legs alternately one after another. In other words, the foreleg and opposite hind leg striking the ground at the same time, completing the movement in two beats.

After the arrival of Columbus on the island of Hispaniola on his second voyage, Rodrigo de Bastidas, Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada, Pedro de Heredia, and the judge Juan de Badillo arrived in Colombia with groups of stallions and mares that later formed small groups spread along the Atlantic coast and important settlements in the savannah of Bogotá and in western Antioquia (a department of Colombia) after difficult crossings of the Magdalena River and the Uraba gulf. These horses changed throughout the 400 years that separate our time from the era of those famous exploits, perfecting their movements but maintaining their conformational characteristics and temperament. Training with a great sense of rhythm and harmony, caused the descendants of those first horses to break up the pace, producing in two beats the striking of the lateral pair of legs in order to create a four-beat gait. This gait on the Atlantic coast was called "dos y dos" (two and two) and in the Bogotá savannah and surrounding valleys "paso fino". In the Andean region, mainly around Antioquia, Caldas, Tolima, and Huila (departments and mountains),it was called "paso castellano" because of the execution of a secondary movement called the "troche" that the horse learned in order to rest on hilly terrain and that was influenced by the horse's conformation.

While this was occurring in America, in Spain according Cabrera's narrative, they did not continue to send horses to the Indies because here, especially in Central America, bounded by Santo Domingo and Cuba, an immense colony formed from which the best horses were exported to Spain and others left for the conquest of Mexico, Peru, and southern Florida. In Spain interest was in producing a coach horse of great beauty and elegance in its movements in order to show off the teams pulling the carriages. For that, breeders resorted to horses of great size from northern Europe, like the Friesian, Danish and English horses, all with a height greater than 160 centimeters (15h.) They also used horses of Arab blood represented by sires brought to the breeding farms of Andalusia from South Yemen. This historian thus notes that "...the ancient Spanish Barb horse was soon succeeded by the modern Andalusian, with a large head and convex profile, very showy but of limited heart, and if some remained in some corner of the country, the French invasion of 1808 finished them off." These crossbreds, then, initiated the era of the modern Spanish horse, represented in the world today by a goodly number of breeds selected for their color and similar way of going but genetically descendants of the above process. Among these, besides the present-day Spanish horse represented by the Andalusian and Carthusian breeds, we can name the Lusitano and the Alter Real of Portugal, the famous Lipizzaners of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, Austria, and the Kladruber in Czechoslovakia, all with outstanding conformation but none comparable in temperament and valor to the Barb. Whoever carefully studies the factors incidental to the formation of fine airs or movements will be able to prove that neither great height nor great weight contribute to agility and besides, it is obvious that the modern Spanish horse has less brio and fire than the horse of Barb origin. It must be noted, on the other hand, that in Spain the influence of these bloodlines characterized by diagonal movements caused the gradual disappearance of the amble (pace) so that all breeds now move with a trot.

Since we are noting the general lines of he historical and evolutionary process, we must include with the types of equines brought with the conquistadors the native trot/gallop horse, magnificently represented in Santo Domingo, the plains of Venezuela, some Colombian provinces and Argentina. It is a horse with a temperament and brio very similar to the Barb horse but with completely diagonal movements defined by great polish and noticeable smoothness for the horseman. Its size is the same as the North African horse, small. In spite of the fact that the historian Cabrera expresses the possibility that this horse also is of purely Barb origin, we believe that it possibly contains Arab blood, obtained through the presence of some horses on the Spanish peninsula and perhaps eagerly chosen for their great aptitude for field work.

This native horse produces confusion regarding its origin because when studying the mechanics of movement, which we will treat a little later, we will see how the horse inherits it gaits or rhythms, which inevitably depend upon historical origins and trainers who, through education, produce the gaits. The great secret of realizing the horse's potential through training consists of the ability by which the trainer captures the rhythm of the horse's impulsion, and like the interpreter of a modern musical piece on the piano, he gives a "melody" to that rhythm: in other words he give the horse more or less polish and harmony based on its natural ability.

We have made the preceding historical analysis to bring the reader and aficionado to important practical terrain, teaching him to investigate the process of the formation of the gaits through the descent of the breed by looking at individual horses and the tendencies of the different lines.

As we noted before, in Columbia of the 1950's, movements derived from the pace of the Barb horse predominated. The lateral bipedal movement of the pace gave way to the breaking up of each pair of legs into two beats to complete the movement in four beats. (Bipedal movement is the movement in unison of two different legs; legs on the same side are lateral and opposing rear and fore legs are diagonal). From the original movement of the pace whose characteristic sound is ta..ta..ta..ta.., we move to ta ca..ta ca..ta ca..ta ca.., which is the melodious sound of the paso gait. The adjective "fino" depends on the harmony and extreme smoothness of the gait achieved by the rider when he balances the lateral movements of the horse's back and the vertical movements of the legs based on superior coordination between the speed of the rhythm and the length of each stride. That balance and harmony determines the quality of the gait and for that reason the paso gait must be completed with immobility of the croup, impossible to obtain in the original movement of the pace.

As a consequence of that evolution and of the perfecting of the paso gait, the original pace of the first descendants of the Barb horse disappeared in our country. This did not occur in Ecuador and Peru where it still exists and is called "huambiano" and "huachano". Whether the cause was training or whether topographical conditions influenced it, we cannot determine precisely. But what is evident is that the trainers contributed the musical sense and auditory symmetry of the gait. The proof is that in those regions where the horse has been used simply as a means of transportation four-beat movements have also appeared, called "dos y dos" as is the case along the Atlantic coast. In other regions, for example in the Andean region and in the savannah of Bogotá, a four-beat gait of special coordination or calibration was either added or demanded in order to add to the horse's appearance and to make his movements shine to the highest degree. From those regions originate the terms "fino" and "castellano", in this case "fino" indicated that the legs when moving were lower to the ground and "castellano" indicated that a "troche" resting gait was possible due to the conformation traits mentioned earlier, but always this development was within the lines of the breed derived from the Barb. These lines were producing a type of paso gait that met the topographical necessities of the different regions. This is the reason for the classifications "Puerto Rican fino", "Peruvian Paso", "Colombian fino", and "paso Castellano."

Our grandparents taught us that in order to ride paso fino, the rider must simultaneously obey three rules: "strong legs" in order to provide impulsion to the horse and rapidity in his rhythm; "light hands" in order to regulate his stride in perfect coordination with either a greater or a lesser speed of the gait; and "riding with the seat of your pants" in order to make sure that the first two rules are applied correctly.

Finally, we should reaffirm that the evolution from the pace to the paso fino gait was also made possible by the great brio of the Barb horse to which we referred in the historical section. The horse responds spontaneously to the aids the rider applies with his legs and hands; the rider, on the other hand, has a greater aptitude for improving the quality of the gait or for equipping or enabling the horse when it lacks brio, if the horseman becomes preoccupied with obtaining a faster rhythm based on means, his "feel" for riding the horse in the best possible way deteriorates and the possibility of improvement or evolution of the gait is eliminated.

When the dominant biped in the horse's stride is formed by opposing rear and fore legs (Right fore and left rear or vice versa), the horse moves with a diagonal rhythm. The original diagonal movement, equivalent to the pace in lateral movements, is the trot. It is defined as a movement that is executed by placing alternately, one after the other, a diagonal pair of legs that produces an abrupt sound of one beat, completing the gait in two beats. Its characteristic sound is tas..tas..tas..tas..tas..tas. It is a movement whose smoothness depends as much on the beat and the sustaining of the rhythm as on the conformation and elasticity of the horse's legs. With this most elemental of gaits, we have succeeded, through selective breeding and good training, in obtaining horses that produce a sensation of comfort similar to that of a paso fino horse. The trot combines very well with the gallop since the gallop is another diagonal movement but with longer strides and performed in three beats. To execute this gait, the horse launches himself into the air supported on his rear legs with an impulsion whose smoothness depends on the flexion of the hocks. The first beat is made by one rear leg striking the ground; the second beat is made by the other rear leg and opposite foreleg; and the third beat is the landing of the foreleg opposite the rear leg which initiated the gait. These three beats have a characteristic sound that our native horsemen identify thus : ca tor ce..ca tor ce.. ca tor ce.

The smoothness of this gait depends on the absolute symmetry of the three beats. Since frequently horses do not perform this gait with adequate rear impulsion, they instead produce a running movement of four beats in which the sequence of contact with the ground is mixed up. Rhythm and harmony are completely destroyed and forward progress is made by the addition of a beat in the cycle of the complete gait. In the case of the three-beat gallop, the change of rhythm from the trot to the gallop producing the combined trot-gallop, does not mean a significant change in rider comfort despite the evident variation in the length of the stride. On the other hand, in the four-beat gallop, harmony and smoothness are totally lost and instead of galloping, the horse runs.

Continuing with the analysis of movements in which a diagonal biped predominates, we find the trocha on a different rhythmic scale. The trocha can be defined as a movement which the horse executes with alternating diagonal pairs of limbs, each pair comprising two beats in order to form a gait of four beats.

It is the equivalent of the paso fino, that is to say, it is executed in four beats but in a diagonal rhythm . Its presence in our horse is relatively new, if we analyze its genetic origin, even though it was produced in the paso fino horse in the Andean region as a secondary air with a reduced rhythm used for rest, and the trainer, with a fixed beat and cadence, demanded it of the horse. The horse had to modify his stride in order to move his limbs with less speed, changing the lateral biped of the paso to the diagonal biped of the trocha.

The present-day trocha is characterized by a higher lifting of the hoof off the ground. In addition , a vertical sense can be clearly seen in the movements of the rider, from his chaps to his shoulders to the mane of the horse. This contrasts with the transverse movement that can be observed in those same points when the paso gait is performed.

Around 1960, Don Danilo appeared on the horse scene in Colombia, an animal outstanding not only because of the evident quality of his own movements but also because of the dominance with which he transmitted to his offspring in the ensuring years new and very distinct phenotypical and gene-typical characteristics. Several new phenotypical characteristics became much valued, namely; a new croup line, rounded and with a higher tail-set; a shorter and more triangular neck and a wider chest and hind quarters, accompanied by unexpected strength and elevation of the legs. In the majority of animals the hock action became springier, permitting more flexion in the hind quarters. On the other hand, there was a general diminution of brio. As a consequence of the genetic strength of that sire, there was a fairly constant transmission of the diagonal rhythm to his offspring.

Upon investigating his origin, it is clear that he was out of the mare Danesa, a half-breed, a daughter of the stallion Lusitano, a pure-blooded Portuguese horse imported around 1945 by Conchita Cintron, a woman who rode in the bull-ring. On the paternal side, he was a son of the stallion Rey Cometa and grandson of Cometa, an Antioquian horse descended from the best lines of the southwest, with the carefully preserved bloodlines of the conquistadors. Without a doubt this constituted an incursion of the blood of the modern Spanish horse, of which Cabrera has spoken with much documentation, into our breed of Barb origin. This produced extremely important changes which have not been studied with care until now, initiating a process in which, through trial and error, the movements of our horses were temporarily but quite clearly modified, improving the diagonal rhythms of the trot and trocha after two or three crosses but also affecting the paso gait in various ways. The effect could be prejudicial when the rhythm of the offspring was modified, or when the genetic strength of the diagonal rhythm canceled out the lateral movement of Barb origin, leaving animals with undefined rhythms and slow movements because of changes in the legs which impeded the speed and smoothness of the gaits.

But not all the results were negative in the fino gait the new conformation of the hock improved the immobility of the croup, the smoothness of the leg movements, as well as achieving better flexion and action of the hocks. On the other hand, we will see how, as a fortunate genetic occurrence, the trocha as a four-beat diagonal movement became "fixed", especially in the line of El Arco, being transmitted by Don Danilo's most outstanding offspring (El Arco, Rebelde, Sucesor, Veneno, Canario, etc). This consistent and increasingly more elegant trocha gait has produced a new riding horse, one with a great future because of his double usefulness. His gait is smooth and harmonious and unsurpassed for work, and because he lifts his legs higher than the fino horse he is more comfortable to ride on hilly terrain and cross-country. One requirement is that the forelegs must be lifted no higher than the base of the shoulders so as not to affect either the speed of the leg movements or the harmony between the forelegs and the hind legs.

It can be clearly stated that historically we have two types of horse in Colombia classified as:

1. The horse of lateral movements, represented by the paso gait in its various forms, of Barb origin, small, with a sometimes sloping croup, a lower tail set, and a long neck with a tendency toward a trapezoidal shape because of the small difference in width between the base of the neck and the juncture of the neck and head. The neck in the horse of diagonal gait is more triangular in appearance. The profile of his head is straight. His height, coinciding with that of his ancestor and fluctuating on the average between 13.1 hands and 14.1 hands, is very much in agreement with the speed of his extremities and with the height needed to correctly perform the paso fino gait. To complete the picture, this horse has a valiant temperament par excellence that in addition to enabling them to endure hardships permitting them to constantly perform better under the able hands of our trainers.

2. The horse of diagonal movements, represented by trotters and trochadores, whose historical origins are clearly different from those of the first horse, with distinct phenotypical characteristics, the rounded croup, the more elastic hock, the triangular neck as mentioned earlier, wider chest, and hind quarters, a higher tail-set, and occasionally higher withers which may give the impression of a swayed back. His height is much greater than that of the paso fino but his brio is less. Frequently his profile is convex. And, as we have thoroughly analyzed earlier, the movements of his legs are more striking.

Note: This article was most proudly prepared by Viviana Angel Maya who lives in Medellín, Colombia. We greatly appreciate Viviana taking the time to share this history of Don Danilo with all of us. At the young age of 18 Viviana has a great passion for the history and pedigrees of Colombian horses. And in her words "I have completely been a Paso Fino horses "aficionado" for all my life." Viviana has written articles for other magazines in Colombia on the history of other Paso Fino greats.

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