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Trot.

Trot. Trot is a two-beat diagonal gait (diagonal pairs of legs move together) which has a moment of suspension in which there are no legs on the ground.

How trot is ridden:

Very often 5-gaited horses, or horses that are a bit tense, not knowing how to relax the neck, have problems with trotting. The problem is often accompanied with their training history, and is one of the reasons why it is so important to ride a horse you are starting in lots of trot, not much tolt or pig-pace.
So, horses have different talents to trot. If the horse's first choice of gait is trot, it is usually enough to give it a bit of free rein, and encourage it to go at the right speed to trot.
If the horse does not trot easily, let the horse walk, lean a bit forward to move your weight a bit more over the horse's withers, hold the reins rather low and loose and encourage the horse softly to go faster (preferably with your voice). It is a good habit to touch the top of the withers lightly at the same time with your hand. The horse learns soon that this is a clue that it is supposed to trot, not tolt.

Encouraging the horse to trot by leaning a bit forward with a bit loose reins during the transition from walk to trot. This horse can trot with a bit high head carriage, other horses have to learn to carry their neck lower to be able to trot.
C: Ragnar Eiríksson.

If the horse doesn't want to trot:

If the horse declines from trotting, how you sit can be important. Often a horse tenses a bit feeling the "bump" from you on it's back, so that it takes just 2-3 trot steps and then does not want to trot more. If the horse does that, both sitting the trot, and posting the trot can be something the horse can't take at this stage in the training. Then it is best to lean a bit forward, in such a way that your weight is 1/3 in the stirrups, 1/3 in the knees, 1/3 in the seat, and when the horse trots be careful not to give any new clues with your feet or the reins, just sit still this way. When the horse is starting to trot for a while like this, maybe for 50-100 metres (150-300 feet) or more, pet the horse, even give it a treat or a breather, whatever to let the horse know this was the right thing.

Dividing the weight. Conditions that encourage the horse to trot:

Exersise: Many horses do not want to trot in the beginning of a tour, but when they are warmed a bit up, they relax and trotting becomes easier. If you ride for a very long time though, some horses get tired and it is again more difficult to trot, it starts rolling or something. Find the ideal length of the tour for your horse.

Hills: It is more natural for all horses to trot uphill. Sometimes 5-gaiters, that have a hard time trotting, if you let them trot uphill, they start to roll in the trot. In these cases it is sometimes the solution to try to trot them in all kinds of levelness, that is to say it is sometimes easier to let them trot downhill or on level ground. Just experiment.

Ground: Riding on soft ground, in snow, and uneven ground, encourages the horse to trot. Also riding over poles. When going over very uneven ground, pigpacers find that they have a tendency to stumble, so they choose the trot instead.

Rein-contact: Use long reins, don't ask the horse to go in a collected walk or collected trot untill it's really well balanced in the trot.

Weights: 10 mm shoes or boots (as light as possible and for as few rides as possible to achieve the goal) encourage the horse to trot. It is though better to use heavy weights (250 grams, 8 ounces) for a few rides, than light weights that have little or no effect for a long time.

Relaxation: Help the horse not to be tense, and be sure that nothing is hurting it. Check that the saddle fits, that the feet aren't sore etc.

Speed: Find the speed where it is easiest for your horse to trot, whether it is fast or slow.

Straight road: It is more difficult for a horse to trot when turning, riding a bend etc.

Saddle placement: Put the saddle a bit forward, not so much that it hurts the withers though (freedom of movement must be enough there).

Teach the horse to relax the neck, it is difficult or impossible for it to trot with a raised neck. When the horse is learning to trot, help it to relax, and become soft in its body with softening exersises (turning, sidestepping, backing etc.). Ride it a lot in trot, so that it gets more balance and freedom in the trot and learns the clue about the hand on the withers.
When the horse has gotten balance, after 15 rides for example, start sitting or posting the trot (whatever you are used to doing), and later to take some reincontact. Remember that a child first has to learn to crawl before it starts to walk.

A 5 gaited horse, trotting at liberty.
Dögg from Halldórsstöðum at Langhús.

If a 5-gaited horse doesn't want to trot in a paddock or arena (only tölts or paces):

A 5-gaited horse very often avoids trotting, a lateral gait is it's first choice of gait. With many 5-gaited Icelandics it's very hard, even impossible, to ask them to do dressage in the trot, because they'll simply go into tölt.
If the horse avoids trotting, it is even more difficult for it to trot in a pen, because the horse has to turn frequently, does never go uphill, the horse often has to trot too slow for it's ability, there might be a teacher or something yelling and disturbing him, and the ground material in the pen might be counter-effective to trotting.
The problem also with a horse that avoids trotting, is that to trot effectively it has to lower it's head, but if you stop the horse with the reins it influences the horse to raise it's head. Everything that tenses the horse slightly works in the same way.
So, over all it might be worth a thought, whether it's worth the effort at all to go through the frustrations involved to get such a horse to trot in a pen, especially if it trots well on the trail.
But, what can be done? First of all, put heavy boots (maybe 8-9 ounces) on the horse. Only use them for one or two lessons if it's enough, just to help you two to get over the initial obscacle. The boots are not to be a future crutch, only a small help to help the horse feel comfortable trotting. When the horse responds
reasonably well (or at least, has made a tiny progress) to trotting with boots, take them off.
Often these horses trot when lunged, then it's worth a try to lunge them, first with a saddle on, then with a rider that does nothing, only sits there with his weight forward and light seat, and tries not to interfere with the horse, to get it used to trotting with a rider on his back. A big part of the problem is that you have
to get the horse's mind used to trotting in this place.
When you ride it in the pen, ask it to trot (remember to use long reins), and when it tölts, ask it to walk, just long enough so that it can go into a relaxed walk (preferably just ca. 4 steps, longer if nessesary), then ask for trot again. Give as slight and relaxed clues for trot as you possibly can get away with. If it's enough for you to think trot, for the horse to go faster, just think "trot". When you ask it to walk, preferably only use a word clue, or/and relax in the seat, do not use the reins, because then you'll hardly get the horse out of the raised-neck frame. Do this again and again and again, untill you're so sick and tired of it you could throw up.
Use the straight stretches as you ask the horse for trot, as it's likely that it can't trot through the corners to begin with.
Some horses respond to you taking them out of balance by asking them for trot while letting them do a 300-360° turn, but they're a bit of exceptions, it's worth a try though. It you feel no repsonce, stop doing it and work on the straight stretches.
You are not rewarding the horse by putting him into walk again, because you're constanly interfering with the horse by asking walk-trot-walk-trot-walk-trot etc... the horse wants to get a pause and be allowed to walk for a longer time but you don't allow it to do that, you only let it walk for as short a time as you can
get away with.
If the horse trots well for a small stretch, try asking it for walk before it stops trotting (so that it knows it was the trot that was rewarded), and now reward it with a longer period of walk, maybe half a minute.
A relaxed walk is also nessesary when working with this, if the horse is tip-toeing in a pacy and quick walk it's very unlikely that you'll get it into a trot, it will then just go from walk up to tölt. If it´s is walk is tense in the pen, start by working on that.
If you get the horse easily into trot, but then it speeds up out of it, keep working on asking it for walk and straight up into trot again. Sit very very quietly in the saddle once it trots, and don't interfere at all or do anything (don't say "good boy", don't post, don't do anything, because if you do that it raises it´s neck up and looses the trot, it needs to learn to relax in the paddock). Remove distracting and stressful objects if you can (people and other horses included). Do the walk-trot transitions for a longer time, when you've worked on this for an hour it's likely that you're both so sick and bored of this that the horse will be trotting for a longer time. Do this for a period, and don't work on the tölt for a few lessons, after warm-up only work on walk and trot for a few lessons untill the horse trots consistently. Boredom is the key. It's okay if the horse goes into the
middle of the school, let it go in what ever direction (as long as it's not too uncontrolled), just as long as you get the trot out of it. Work at one thing only for a while, to get it to trot in this place. Finer nuances in the riding can be worked on later, once the horse trots consistently.

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