What is the difference between a paso fino and a peruvian paso

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Menu Skip to content Home Want a Paso? Paso Fino vs Peruvian Paso Horse. So here goes: They have in common the Iberian ancestry, a similar size adaptation to the environment and use , the Paso gait isochronal 4-beat , a tough disposition, and a similar purpose. Share this: Click to share on Facebook Opens in new window Click to share on Twitter Opens in new window Click to email this to a friend Opens in new window.

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This site is all about Paso Horses in Australia and NZ, but it is not limited to this geographic context. Spanish conquistadors like de Soto were inheritors of some of the finest riding techniques in the whole of Eurasia.

The jineta riding style, unique to Spanish cattle-ranchers, emphasized spontaneity, speed, balance in the saddle and maneuverability. Bull-fighting, a pastime which grew out of Spanish ranching, also helped riders and their horses improve their techniques of forceful advance and swift retreat. The conquistadors who sailed to the New World were skilled equestrians raised on the cattle and sheep ranches in the Iberian Peninsula.

On the morning of November 16, , a surprise charge of just 37 Spanish cavalry riders, concealed in the Inca town of Cajamarca, unleashed historic slaughter. They easily overwhelmed a great army due to their novel appearance and fighting style. While Europeans soldiers know that infantry can form a square and use sticks or blades to repel mounted warriors, the Inca had no experience doing this, nor could they have heard about the tactic since they were so geographically isolated.

Instead, they panicked and tried to flee, which allowed just three dozen conquistadors on their nimble Spanish horses to ride through and slay their entire force with great speed and efficiency.

Horses were used by colonists to travel and move produce around the vast silver, sugar and cotton plantations spanning mountainous regions and deserts, requiring tough yet comfortable mounts with exceptional endurance. This became the aim of breeders in Peru who, over the next four hundred years, developed the modern Peruvian Paso.

In the s, the Peruvian Paso, like so many other horse breeds, went into decline as the arrival of motored transportation eliminated their useful purpose. Asphalt highways put their future in peril and the Peruvian government did not help, but rather hurt the situation in the s when much of the good breeding stock was decimated or exported. Luckily, renewed interest in the breed began to flourish first in North America and then in Central America and now finally it has also regained strength in Peru itself where the National Show in Lima has become an important cultural event.

Despite their similar names, and how they share the same Spanish heritage, and similar Old World ancestors, the Peruvian Paso is not to be confused with the Paso Fino.

Peruvian horses are noticeably larger with broader shoulders and thicker manes and tails. More important is how they walk, and how Peruvians are specifically bred for termino, a signature ambling stride.

Anyone who studies the Peruvian Paso and the Paso Fino will find great differences in their size, conformation, way of going, gear, training methods, and historical uses. What is looked for in the two different breeds is almost diametrically opposed. The Peruvian and Paso Fino breeds are related, but even four centuries ago the relationship was distant. They both came from Spain.

The countries which developed the horses, known in the United States as Paso Finos, were basically Puerto Rico, Colombia, the Dominican Republic and Cuba, all bordering on the Caribbean Sea and all located within a radius of approximately miles. The Peruvian horse, aided by geography, history and the convictions of breeders in Peru, has been a pure breed without outside influence for over four centuries. The training methods for Peruvian Horses and Paso Fino horses are so dissimilar that the only common goal is that the horses are ultimately ridden.

Because an entirely different way of going is required of the Peruvian Paso from the Paso Fino, they have very different conformation. In our defense, the two breeds stem to the same group of horses brought over to the Americas by the Spanish conquistadors who were typically mounted on Andalusians, Barbs and the now-extinct Jennet. As the Spanish spread across the South and North American continents, they brought their horses with them, breeding more stock from the original imported horses.

And here is where history divides the breeds: the horses who traveled west across South America to Peru stayed isolated in that coastal country, caught between the Pacific and the Andes. Among the Caribbean and Latin American countries, another variety of the conquistador horse remained, especially in Puerto Rico and Colombia.