With equines, there are four common gaits. The walk, a four beat gait, the trot, a two beat gait in which diagonal feet hit the ground at the same time, the canter, a three beat gait, and the gallop. Some horses also can preform, naturally, one or more other gaits. Most of these gaits are valued because they are very smooth so offer the rider a comfortable trip. Many of these breeds are popular as transportation even today, or are often in competitions so see which is the smoothest.
Peruvian Paso
Peruvian Paso performing the Paso Llano, a smooth four beat gait, the photo is from Wikimedia. These horses are beautiful to watch or ride. They are incredible smooth and have great endurance. They travel in a way that involves swinging their lower front legs out and around. This would be a severe fault in another breed. They are not huge horses, nor are they considered high strung, making them a suitable mount for anyone.
Icelandic Horse
Icelandics are an ancient breed of horses who have lived in Iceland for thousands of years, as such they are considered very pure. In fact if an Icelandic horse leaves Iceland, he, or she, cannot return. Although they are small and could easily be called ponies, they are to be considered as horses. Their special gait is the "Tolt" which involves the same foot sequence as the walk, but is more exaggerated and incredibly smooth. They horse performing the Tolt, photo from Wikimedia.
Tennessee Walking Horse
This Tennessee Walking horse is performing the running walk naturally. You may have seen pictures of them with even more extreme leg lifting, sadly many owners resorted to cruel methods of attaining this action, including making the bottoms of their feet so sore, they ache when they are placed down. Some methods are legal, such as putting light weight chains on their feet, or adding pads to the bottoms of their feet. They are known for many gaits, the running walk being one of them. The photo is from Wikimedia.
Standardbred
These are the horses you often see at the race tracks pulling the carts. They are sometimes raced while performing the trot, but some horses in the breed exhibit a special gait, called the Pace. Where as the trot is a two beat gait involving opposite legs moving at the same time, the pace involves the legs on the same side moving the same way at the same time. Standardbreds are not the only breed who can perform this gait, but they are one who excell at it in terms of speed. The "Standard" is a horses abilitiy to pace the mile in two minutes or less. For many of these horses, the pace is a gait they can travel at for long distances. You can see in the photo that these Standardbreds are performing the Pace. The picture is from Wikimedia.
Mangalarga Marchador
This is a more uncommon breed, the Mangalarga Marchador. They are from Brazil, and are noted for their unusual four beat gait, in which, just for a split second, three feet touch the ground at a time. The gait is referred to as the "Marcha". Other naturally gaited breeds include the American Saddlebred, Paso Fino and the Rocky Mountain Horse. The Picture is from Wikimedia.
Andalusian
Some breeds, like this Andalusian, can be taught unnatural ways of traveling, such as this horse performing the Spanish Walk. Often in higher levels of dressage horses are taught such moves, or how to exaggerate any of the other natural gaits. The photo is from Wikimedia. Other breeds who excel at performing specialty steps are the Lipizzaner, while Warmblood breeds like the Hanoverian, do very well in higher levels of Dressage.
