Half Halts

[vimto92]

I learnt half halts a couple of weeks ago BUT I'm having trouble.
1) Ben gets strong in trot and it was pretty hard to half halt him properly...was I doing it wrong?

2) How often should you half halt?

3) Are half halts meant to be "invisible" or is it okay if it is obvious that is what you are doing?

When I half halt I have been told to:
Squeeze with the legs
Pull on the reins slightly
And stop moving with the horse

Any help would be greatly appreciated.;)

Vic x

[wanabe]

I was told to only use the squeeze with the legs on horses that tend to drop back to a lower gait when half-halted. If your horse is forward-going, like mine, then I was told not to use the legs.

[cvb]

1) Ben gets strong in trot and it was pretty hard to half halt him properly...was I doing it wrong?
see below....

2) How often should you half halt?
as often as you need to ;)
a half-halt is useful any time you need to rebalance - and especially as a preparation for a change e.g. in direction, pace etc

3) Are half halts meant to be "invisible" or is it okay if it is obvious that is what you are doing?

a half-halt is effectively a momentary hesitation. It should be pretty much invisible BUT that will take practice from you, and training for the horse... you start with something less subtle and refine ;)

When I half halt I have been told to:
Squeeze with the legs
Pull on the reins slightly
And stop moving with the horse

I hate the word "pull" - I hope you don't really mean a backward movement :( A close of the hand, without any physical movement, is often all that is required.

You say Ben was getting strong - could that be because he thinks you are actually asking him to go forward ("squeeze with the legs") so he is stepping more into your hand than you are expecting ? Check you are not doing too much with the leg aid ;)

Simplistically the half-halt is very similar to a full halt but you only apply the aid for a moment.... and then ride normally again.

So you may find doing a few full halts help ;) then refine back to a half-halt again.

I say this because the aids for a full halt get refined as you progress as well.. often when we are initially taught we are told "kick to go, pull to stop" - but how may grand prix dressage riders do you see doing that :rolleyes:

[Katharine]

I like to think of a half halt as more of a position check. If you think about it, when you check your position you slightly squeeze with your legs, give a wee squeeze with your hands and straighten (tense slightly) your upper body. Horses are sensitive enough to notice a change in you body weight as slight as this and hence check themselves slightly.
It depends on the level you are riding at, if you are fairly novicey you want to be half halting to make sure the horse's attention is on you. If you are more advanced and doing lateral movements you want to be half halting to get the horse more onto its hind legs.
Wanabe, I would say that you should be using some leg even if your horse is forward going. The half halt is not to stop the horse moving forwards, it is to check the movement and focus the horse on the task involved.
Hope that helps!
Katharine

ETA - cross posted CVB!

[vimto92]

Thanks everyone, you have given me great replies!:)
Sorry but I used "pull" for a lack of a better word.:(
So...sit tall...close of the hand...squeeze of the legs *depending on horse*...stop hips flowing with movement...and....PRACTICE! Thank you.:D I am ever so grateful, honest!:)

[cvb]

Wanabe, I would say that you should be using some leg even if your horse is forward going. The half halt is not to stop the horse moving forwards, it is to check the movement and focus the horse on the task involved.


Katherine - if you are using leg to maintain the gait anyway, then you wouldn't stop. But remember western style is much lighter in aids and tends to ask the horse to carry on without continuous contact from leg or hand until asked to do something different.

more and more I am convinced that in english/dressage training we are not clear enough about what we expect the response to leg to be, and hence end up "training" our horses to a heavier leg rather than a lighter one :(

that sounds like hard work to me, plus its like "shouting" at the horse the whole time - when I then want to refine, its hard to...

On Chris Bartle's "lessons of a lifetime" tour he talked about needing to keep "the engine revving" through downward transitions - but he didn't say "more leg" ;)

I think in this case the leg would be saying "step under more" - with a western trained horse they may do exactly what you say and step right under :eek:

with an english/dressage trained horse, they may need to step up more - but if they don't, why ask it ?

I speak from personal experience I WAS using leg in my halt transitions, and got horrible horrible halts as a result, which took a good few strides from ask to halt. Take the leg away and I got lovely sharp square halts :D (but then this IS a western trained horse ;) doing dressage)