The Breed

History

In 1493 Christopher Columbus took horses on his conquests from Spain to South America (today's Dominican Republic). On board many purebred Spaniards turned out to be ponies or crossbreeds. Columbus was a pretty miserable horseman and usually preferred a mule to travel. That those horses were the fiery and famous ancestors of South American horses is pretty unrealistic. Fortunately many valuable mares from Spain followed during the next 12 years. On their descendants the Spanish conquered South America.

The breeding goals were put together quickly. You needed a comfortable, motivated, sure-footed and agile (they also wanted to use them for cattle work) horse that could cover long distances. In this new South American culture today's Paso Fino arose.

Origin / Geographical extension

The Paso Fino origins in Colombia. In the meantime, the Paso Fino can be found in many other countries, mainly in North America. Other examples are the USA, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.

Character

The Paso Fino is elegant and versatile and wins over with its temperament, which is always controllable. The differences in temperament and talent are quite large within the breed. No matter if you are looking for a lively show horse or for a reliable, comfortable companion for long trail rides, you will find the matching horse for you. The Paso Fino wins over with his human friendly and studious character.

Exterior and gait

The Paso Fino’s height is between 136 and 155 cm. One wishes the physique as correctly as possible with a dainty, but at the same time very durable, dry foundation; small, hard hooves and solid, short fetlocks. The Paso Fino is light-footed, elegant, has a lot of natural grace and style, is easy to handle, but has a lot of temperament under the saddle, which is called "Brio" (Spanish: courage, strength).

The gait is strongly genetically fixed and very natural. The basic gait is the Paso, a pure four beat gait (similar to the Tölt of the Iceland horse). Young horses or those in training are rather ridden in Trocha, a mixture of Trot and Paso, than in Paso. By collection the horses move continuously into the pure four beat gait, the Paso. Pace is not desirable. Trot is rarely found in a Paso Fino, walk and canter are the same as with any other horse.

Type classification

Pleasure-Type: Top leisure horse with low collection

Performance-Type: Sport and leisure horse with great style and accented movements plus faster footfall

Classic Fino-Type: Gait with the highest level of collection at rapid footfall and minimal space gain

Already tried out?

We could tell you even more exciting and interesting things about the Paso Fino, but in our opinion the Paso Fino has to be seen live. The awesome feeling of a short ride on these horses can’t be described by many words! On our farm we offer the entire range of different Paso Fino horses. Join one of our try out days or fix a personal appointment with us!