After undergoing eight surgeries on his legs, Jim O’Neill didn’t think he’d ever ride a horse again.

However, the Bend man’s wife, Margie, helped him find his way back into the saddle. She gave him Smokey, the 6-year-old Paso Fino gelding that she had been riding since suffering a devastating knee injury.

”All in all, Paso Finos are a great horse for someone who wants a smooth ride,” says Margie O’Neill, who rides Flying M Amadeus, an 8-year-old Paso Fino gelding. ”You don’t have the jarring you do with a regular horse.”

She should know. A longtime Arabian lover, she blew out her knee skiing and couldn’t ride her beloved Arabs.

”I couldn’t ride big trotting horses,” says Margie, who did some research and discovered that Paso Finos are much like an Arabian in many ways, except that the breed has a much smoother gait and perhaps a personality that is a little less willful.

”With the spirit they have, they are like a gaited Arabian,” Margie says. ”They actually are very, very people-oriented, very sweet horses. They’re very sensitive and intelligent, more so than other breeds.”

According to the Paso Fino Horse Association, Spanish conquistadors brought a variety of horses to the new world approximately 500 years ago. Breeding among those horses resulted in the Paso Fino, which means ”fine walk” in Spanish. In the 1940s, Americans began importing Paso Finos from Puerto Rico, one of two places where they are commonly bred. The other is Colombia.

Paso Finos typically stand approximately 14 hands high, which is the equivalent of about 56 inches at the withers, the bump where the neck runs into the back.

They often are characterized by their flowing manes, tails and forelocks, and high head carriage.

The breed has a unique four-beated gait, in which each hoof strikes the ground independent of the others. It is natural to the breed – it’s not trained into the horses – and results in a smooth yet rapid-fire stride. To the untrained eye, the four-beated gate is not apparent.

”Their feet move so fast, you can’t tell by looking,” says Margaret Steele, as she sits astride Pepper, 15, a Paso Fino mare.

The Bend woman got her first Paso Fino in 1985, while living in Michigan. She previously had owned and ridden thoroughbreds, but says she ”was looking for something smooth and easy to ride.”

Likewise for Judi Tolboe, a Bend resident who owns Tazio, an 8-year-old gelding. She had previously ridden quarter horses and Arabians, but medical problems forced her into a painful decision.

”I was told I needed to quit riding,” Tolboe remembers. ”I wasn’t ready to do that. I ended up with Pasos. They don’t cause as many aches and pains. I decided rather than give up, I’d go with Tazio. He’s my first, last and forever (Paso).”

In fact, talking to a group of Paso Fino enthusiasts, all of whom are members of the Northwest Paso Fino Horse Association, it’s apparent that the breed’s unique stride is what attracted them to the equine.

The Paso Fino can perform all of the gaits that regular horses use, such as the walk, trot and canter. However, the four-beated gait is its natural stride, and there are three main speeds at which it is performed.

Fino is the speed at which the horse is fully collected, according to the PFHA. The hooves all hit the ground rapidly but the horse actually takes very small steps.

Corto is the middle gait, where the horse is somewhat collected and exhibits a medium amount of extension as it covers the ground.

Largo is the fastest speed – the horse is extended, using a long and uncollected stride.

While sitting astride the horse during these gaits, riders seemingly do not move – there’s no bouncing or jarring. Tolboe describes the feeling by relating a T-shirt she once saw.

”It said ‘Paso Fino: The world’s smoothest ATV’,” Tolboe says.

Patricia Brady, a Bend woman who discovered the breed after going to a neighbor’s to help exercise a horse, says the breed can do anything that others can – jumping, dressage, barrel racing, trail riding, endurance racing, and search-and-rescue operations.

”You name it, they can do it,” says Brady, from atop Fuegito, her 10-year-old Paso gelding.

Tolboe has used Tazio while working for a search-and-rescue squad.

She says at first, her co-workers liked to rib her about using a Paso Fino instead of a quarter horse, which they all had. They soon quit their joking, however, when Tazio came to their rescue, so to speak.

While working a mounted parking patrol on a particularly cold Central Oregon day, Talboe and her comrades were in need of a hot beverage. Someone brought coffee to the staging area but couldn’t get it distributed to everyone. Tolboe and Tazio saved the day, as Tolboe grabbed a tray of coffee and, from Tazio’s back, served all of her co-workers.

”I spilled hardly a drop,” Tolboe says with a smile. ”That changes their minds.”

In the Northwest, there’s approximately 100 Paso Finos, according to Margie O’Neill. In Central Oregon, there are only about 20. She says they’re an undiscovered equine treasure.

”The Paso Fino has brought the senior citizen (population) back to riding,” Margie says with a laugh. ”I wouldn’t be riding a horse that wasn’t gaited like this. I wouldn’t be able to take the jarring.

Annette Henry agrees.

”It’s like comparing a Volkswagen to a Rolls-Royce,” says Henry, of La Pine. She and her husband, Ken, own a couple of Paso Finos, including Bella Miel, a 14-year-old mare.

”They’re great endurance horses,” Henry says. ”In trail riding, after doing hours of trails up and down, they will change their gait slightly to use difference muscles. I’ve ridden 20 miles and felt like I could go another 20.”