Canter and gallop
equine gait
The canter and gallop are variations on the fastest gait that can be performed by a horse or other equine. The canter is a controlled three-beat gait, while the gallop is a faster, four-beat variation of the same gait. It is a natural gait possessed by all horses, faster than most horses' trot, or ambling gaits. The gallop is the fastest gait of the horse, averaging about 40 to 48 kilometres per hour (25 to 30 mph). The speed of the canter varies between 16 and 27 kilometres per hour (10 and 17 mph) depending on the length of the horse's stride. A variation of the canter, seen in western riding, is called a lope, and is generally quite slow, no more than 13–19 kilometres per hour (8–12 mph).
Etymology
Since the earliest dictionaries there has been a commonly agreed suggestion that the origin of the word "canter" comes from the English city of Canterbury, a place of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages, as referred to in The Canterbury Tales, where the comfortable speed for a pilgrim travelling some distance on horseback was above that of a trot but below that of a gallop. However, a lack of compelling evidence made the 18th-century equestrian Richard Berenger remark in The History and Art of Horsemanship that "the definition must certainly puzzle all who are horsemen and all who are not" [author's italics], and suggest his own derivation, noted in contemporary dictionaries, from the Latin word cantherius, a gelding, known for its calmness of temper.
Sequence of footfalls
The canter is a three-beat gait, meaning that there are three hoofbeats heard per stride. Each footfall is the "grounding" phase of a leg.
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