The Half Halt

The half halt is something that I will always remember from my riding lessons. Mainly because I spent most of my childhood life trying to work out what it was! When my friends and I would ride together and talk about what we'd learned that week, most of us used the half halt as a mini braking mechanism. It was simply a movement in the hand and reign to slow the horse down into a lower transition..

As I got older and started riding more challenging horses and performing more difficult movements, especially when I started competing in dressage, I realised that there was so much more to the half halt.

So, what is it?

The half halt is a signal that you send to your horse, either to tell them to prepare for the next movement, or simply to remind them that they should be listening to you. It is an important tool in ensuring that you have your horse's full attention in preparation for your next task. Also, it enables you to collect your horse's energy and harness it, ready to make the most of the next sequence you are performing.

And how do you actually 'half halt'?

OK, so the half halt is not just a mini reign tug to slow your horse down. The half halt uses your whole body, ensuring you engage your horse's whole body too. When half halting, you need to ensure that you are creating energy in the horse's hind quarters. To do this, take a slightly deeper seat, engage your stomach muscles and use a little bit of leg to tell the horse that it's energy you want. Then, to collect this energy, you need to close your hand around the outside reign to keep the horse engaged. My instructor once explained it to me like the horse was a tube of toothpaste. When you squeeze the bottom of the tube, if the lid is not on, the toothpaste will just squirt out of the end. You don't want that to happen with your energy, so you need to keep the 'lid' on your horse. Keeping your horse's shape round and using your outside hand as explained will help to do this. Do not be tempted to simply hold on to your outside reign. This encourages the horse to lean on you rather than hold themselves in their own shape.

What does the half halt actually do?

The half halt, as briefly explained above, helps you prepare your horse for the next movement, or gets him or her to listen to you more intently. It enables you to balance your horse ready for a transition for example, moving from walk to trot smoothly, or from trot to canter. However, it is not just used for upward transitions. You can also use a half halt to balance your horse after a movement or transition. Sometimes, when going from canter back down to trot, riders and horses can tend to collapse back down to the lower gait. It's almost relief, the canter was great, quick get back to trot. This is not good! It is important that your transition downwards is just as smooth as the upwards one. So, to keep balance in the trot when returning from canter, half halt!

If you haven't practiced the half halt before...

Take it back to basics. Firstly, in halt, practice the actual movement in the hand, body and legs so that you become familiar with the action. Then look to using it firstly in walk-halt-walk transitions. Once you feel comfortable and you feel your horse engaging and listening to you, try moving up the transitions. You can also try lateral work, such as serpentines, different sized circles, leg-yeilding and shoulder-in. Each of these movements can benefit from good half halt signals and good collected energy within the horse and rider partnership.

So, go forth and half halt!

Thanks for reading!

Sarah