Why would a horse take issue with walk to halt?

[Scarlett 001]

Interesting. As many here know, Skeeter is a delightful long reining horse. He adores it, gets very motivated and works lovely.

I've always noticed when riding, that Skeeter is not that excited when I make him halt and stand. Walk to halt is not something he likes. I decided to work on this long reining tonight. Skeeter was moving *beautifully and happily* for the *entire* long reining session. Then near the end when I asked for walk/halt transitions, he had a couple of hissy fits when I made him stop 4 times going large about the arena. A couple of times he got quite annoyed, insisting that I let him walk forward (and this was at the end of the ride, when he should have been relatively tired). He eventually clued in having a wee tantrum was getting him nowhere, and halted fine in the end.

Question is in title of thread - why would a horse take issue with walk to halt? Is it as simple as he wants to keep moving and is trying to get his own way, and showing attitude - testing to see if I will let him not listen to me?

[Bay Mare]

Previous experiences and training!

I was talking about this just last night with the girl who rides Saffy for me. Saffy is good in all transitions, up and down, except for walk to halt. She will halt for a nanosecond but is then off again. This ties in with how she used to be at the mounting block, the minute you touched the saddle with your butt she was off. It's like she was kept moving almost at any cost. The other thing that we wondered is if she was hauled in the mouth to halt (it would tie in with the other issues that we've had) so that, to her, halt = discomfort so she doesn't want to do it!

She will stop now but the minute you pick up the merest contact she's off again!

'E' is working on this by using body language, she holds her hand up like a policeman to signify 'stop'. So far she seems to be responding well to this and she's going to do some work on the long lines today with her. She's taking a helper with her to back up the aids so that Saff can understand what is being asked of her.

If Skeets was working happily up to then it's probably worth having a look at what could be going on with the halt and if there's anything that you know of his past that could explain it. If only they could tell us why ......

[jenren!!]

Aramis used to be like this, although she just used to lean on the reins whenever i asked. Probably a result of my bad riding, but i couldnt help feeling she was just kicked and was off in her previous life. She wasnt a horse to stop, she needed to keep going!

Keep practising and good luck :).

[KateWooten]

I don't know .. joePony has walk-halt issues too. Hollows his back, head goes up, teeth clench ... and he has no history of anything - he was started by me 18 months ago and most things have gone smoothly. He's never been ridden directly away on mounting ... I suspect it's something more fundamental than previous treatment or training. I keep working on it, and whne he's fit and working well, the issues go away, especially when I can get him working hard on something in trot and canter, and then work on the walk-halt transitions while he has a big incentive to halt. One exercise that really helped him to stay soft through the transition was this .. from halt, when you ask the horse to move forward, his body actually moves forward quite a long way before the first foot ever comes off the ground. (Scarlett, you must have a good feel for how much since you've watched from behind often enough) .. well, you can ask for walk, wait for him to move forward, and then ask for halt BEFORE that foot comes offf the ground. So, it's like a 'half-go' from halt. What it did was gave him the idea that he could go back to halt without the brace... then after that he was more prepared to stay soft through the actual transition too.

[cvb]

my old chap used to struggle to maintain a halt for any period of time cos he was stiff and achy. But I've noticed that I have to "revise" halt with both Fi (11) and Rosie (5) as well when I long rein them. Fi in ridden work is not bad... but it is worse if I get a braced halt rather than a soft one.

Rosie I don't ride - but because we have had so much work on getting her going forward, I do have to remind mum to do halt work as well ? I don't think its something we tend to practice much ?

With Fi, because of her lameness and DJD, I have done a tonne of walk-halt work looking for softness. And we still don't get it 100% of the time.

Compare how many walk-trot etc transitions you may do a session to how many *real* walk-halt (not just the one at the end ;) ) you do... ;)

[nutkin]

some horses do like to just get on with their work and don't like to stand around.I have been taught that when longreining or working a horse in anyway it takes at least 7 seconds for them to register that you want them to remain standing still and should you ask them to wait less than that it doesn't actually sink in.I usually count to ten while asking them to stand after asking for halt and most of them seem to catch on quite quickly once they realise what you are asking.

[Skyhuntress]

Join the club :rolleyes:
While I don't have any experience longreining, I do have the same problem riding.

Limerick is a literal pain in the proverbial butt on his walk to halt transitions. Not only does he HATE to stand still, but his back hollows out and his head shoots up. Probably because of me :p Anyways, my trainer says its because unlike other transitions, in the halt, riders tend to hold too much contact (you know, because we actually don't want to MOVE anymore :p ) and totally forget to back it up with leg and keep them between the aids (because again, we don't really want to go anywhere, we just want to stand still!), and consequently, it's why you'll see many horses trying to back up. So the horse has all this extra pressure on his mouth with no leg to back it up, so his back hollows out and he jolts to a stop. And then, because he's antsy to get on with it because the aids aren't clear, he doesn't want to stand and will try going forwards or backwards; anything to change the current situation

[Esther.D]

It notoriously takes while to teach halt in a driving horse (taught on longreins) so you are not alone! Takes time and patient repetition of short halts gradually getting longer.

Voice aids are very useful here so you are not purely using the reins. You need to be particularly sensitive with contact when longreining as it is very easy to be towed along and have too heavy a contact or use rein aids solely when ridden you would use weight/leg aids as well. Remember your whip and voice replace your leg and weight aids.

You can teach voice aids lunging/longreining/riding/led..whenever.

The driven voice aids vary but I use whoa to indicate slowing ready for halt (like you would half-halt ahead of a downward ridden transition) and then stand for halt.....the full command being 'whoa aaaannnnndddd stand' and accompany this with a half halt on the reins to warn them what you are up to.