The Morgan registry/breed was founded on pedigree, just as the Arabians and
thoroughbreds were, and required to trace in the sire line to Justin Morgan
and have a concentration of Justin Morgan blood. It was not founded on
performance to do particular gaits, as were other breeds like the Standardbred or Saddlebred. So, we are doing the same thing for the Foundation Morgan database, it is based on pedigree only. But, through the entire history of the breed, the Morgan was selected for a "pure, open gaited trot", and a tendency to pace or mix gait has always been frowned upon by traditional Morgan people.

(In contrast, the saddlebred breed was originally founded on the ability to
perform 5 gaits, and were inspected to do so before being registered in
addition to being required to trace in the sire line to the thoroughbred
Gaines Denmark, and a few others such as the standardbred Harrison Chief,
and then narrowed to only Gaines Denmark. The standardbred had no
pedigree requirements at all, just had to win a certain number of races or
trials at a certain minimum speed at the trot or pace, or to have sired or
produced a certain number. So, those 2 other breeds were a conglomeration of
various breeds and bloodlines until they became more homogenized after 1930
with the loss of most of their bloodlines other than a few.)

Because the first Morgan stallions, including Justin Morgan, were often bred
to Narragansett Pacer mares, there were a small number of early Morgans that
were inclined to be "singlefooters" or "mixed gaited" or "amblers" or "pacers" as they were called early in the breed. In spite of the Narragansett dams, it is amazing that so few of the early Morgans were naturally amblers. The Narragansetts came from the same early colonial English gene pool that Justin Morgan came from, or from a slightly earlier line, but Justin Morgan was from a line that didn't happen to amble. Because Justin Morgan came from early, long distance "proto-thoroughbred" racing stock which was selected to not amble, since ambling tendencies reduced speed and made the horse less sure footed at
speed, Justin Morgan did not inherit the amble, and neither did his close up
and linebred descendants. From very early in the Morgan breed the open, pure
"Currier and Ives" trot was selected for, and the amble was frowned upon, as breeders selected for horses carrying the traits of the original Justin Morgan, the founder of the breed. Also, as roads were being built, driving became the preferred mode of travel, by wagon, stage or cart, and pacers or mixed gaited horses were no good over the rough roads, mud and snow, and the multipurpose Morgan breed
had to be good as both a saddle horse and a driving horse.

Many of the original Narragansett Pacers or Morgans that happened to be
Narragansett crosses and singlefooted or paced were sold to Quebec, where
the French Canadians liked pacers and raced them on the ice and where the
land was flat and gravely and unhampered by the thick mud of northern New
York and Vermont. That helped eliminate most of the early Morgans that had
any tendency to be mixed gaited, paced or did not do a true, open trot.
Thousands of the Narragansetts and Narragansett mixes were also exported to
the Caribbean and South America. Some went to the U.S. South to be blended
in with thoroughbreds and early standardbreds and remnants of the
Conestogas, and there in that mix to contribute their amble to the horses of
later breeds like the saddlebred, and later to those that split off from
those breeds to become the walking horse.

The amble was selected for in England in the Middle Ages, before many roads
were built and travel was mainly by trails, and before modern type saddle
trees evolved, so people rode amblers to be able to ride astride or aside on robes for long trips and be able to stay on the horse, as even the saddles then were too rudimentary for posting at a trot. In colonial era America, before decent roads, the preference in the early days of the 1600s and early 1700s for riding was for amblers, and indeed the early records give descriptions of the settlers traveling over trails into the interior wilder areas with the man on foot leading an "ambler" or "palfrey" (an early name for ambler), with the woman "aside" on robes. The preference for amblers remained longer in the U.S. South that was much later in developing good roads for driving and did not have the snow, ice and thick mud of the northeastern states.

By the mid 1700s, the wealthy sons of British merchants and royalty had huge
tracts of land and wealthy farms in coastal areas like Long Island, coastal Connecticut, Mass., and Virginia, and were importing the best blood of the English racing stock, which were then the baroque direct get or grand get of the likes of the Godolphin Arabian, specifically for racing, as the sandy meadows of the coast made ideal racing grounds. With the importation of those baroque horses of racing lines that also had a strong trot, and the improvement of roads for overland travel by driving, the ambling or pacing horses fell out of favor in New England by the late 1700s. Not until the development of smooth harness tracks where pacers could be raced after the mid 1800s did the pacer come back into favor in the north. Unlike trotters, pacers need a very smooth surface to maintain an even gait, and even then would shake apart a carriage or cart.

When the Morgan registry was started by Battell in the 1890s, one of the
requirements was that the horses being registered had no tendency to be
mixed gaited or pace. That was soon abandoned, either because there was no way to tell if the pacing tendency was due to inheritance or training, or because Battell died and was not around to enforce it. Many Morgans and their get that were actually pure trotters were raced as pacers in the 1800s, as pacing came
into vogue, because horses that were pure trotters could be trained to pace
by special shoeing, weights and hopples.

Today, most of the truly "gaited " (i.e. singlefooting or pacing) horses in the Morgan breed descend through the modern saddlebred crosses, such as through Stellar to Admiral Denmark, and through Upwey King Peavine, and got their gait from those recent saddlebred crosses. A few lines from the LU Sheep Ranch that had the world champion pacer Dan Patch way back through the registered Morgan, Morgan Patch,retained the gaited instinct, as through Domino Joe.
And, it might pop up sporadically through some other lines, especially through the government lines with Goldfield. (That came from the early saddlebred mare Mrs. Culvers that had standardbred and early Canadian Pacer up close behind her.) For many years there were many mixed gaited horses through the Upwey King Peavine line, both by Upwey King Benn and by Upwey Ben Don and by their sons. There are not as many of them now, due to selection for the show ring hackney trot. Upwey King Peavine was 5 gaited and advertised as such. The line to Upwey King Peavine through Valley View King that went to the Pacific Northwest and Idaho area still persists in being strongly gaited.

Today, since gaited Morgans have become popular, some people are claiming that their horses are gaited when they are not. They may just have a good fast flat footed walk, or they may be borderline wobblers, or they may be mixed gaited because of an injury or the way they are being trained, bitted or ridden to force them to gait.

~Joanne Curtis