Puerto Rican Paso Fino

The horses arrived with the conquest and stayed to work. By the 1500s hacienda owners favored them for plantation transport, and the island selected on the gait for four centuries.

The breed was identified as separate by 1860. The stallion Dulce Sueno, foaled in 1927, became its most influential sire, and the island's registry and sport federation date to 1943. In 2023 Puerto Rico declared the horse part of its national and cultural heritage.

The breed is defined by its gait. It is four-beat and lateral, the hooves striking in a quick one-two-three-four, and the result is the paso fino, the fine step the breed is named for. There is almost no vertical movement in it, which is why these are recommended for riders who cannot take a rough ride.

They stand 13 to 15.2 hands and weigh 700 to 1,100 pounds. Most colors occur, with and without markings, and chestnut, bay and black are the most common. They are sure-footed, intelligent and hardy.

One trait belongs to this breed and no other. Tiger eye is a recessive gene that turns the iris yellow, amber or orange, and it has been found nowhere else.

Friendly, spirited and responsive is the Conservancy's description, along with a fondness for human contact.

It rates the breed novice to intermediate.

Gaited riding is the job. The Conservancy calls the breed the Cadillac of riding horses: small, with a smooth-as-silk gait.

On the island it is also a show and sport horse, with a federation dedicated to the gait competitions since 1943.

No gait training. The Pure Puerto Rican Paso Fino Federation of America says these horses gait naturally from birth, without special training or appliances, while owners of many other paso fino horses hire trainers to put the lateral gait in. The Conservancy describes a hardy, sure-footed horse.

Fewer than 500 are registered in the United States and fewer than 2,500 exist globally, which puts the breed on The Livestock Conservancy's Conservation Priority List as threatened.

The Pure Puerto Rican Paso Fino Federation of America was incorporated in 1987 specifically to maintain the purity of the breed in the United States: a small breed this close to a larger, related one can be absorbed, and keeping the book pure is the work.

Papers first. Paso Fino in a sale ad covers more than one breed; the pure Puerto Rican horse has its own registry, and the US federation for it is the Pure Puerto Rican Paso Fino Federation of America. Ask which book the horse is in.

Ride before you bid if the gait is the purchase. And if the horse has yellow or amber eyes, that is tiger eye, a recessive color trait found only in this breed.

Recent sale prices on HoofnHorn, where there are any, are further down this page.