AHorseBlog.com – A Detailed Dressage Blog, the Half-Halt, Traditional/Classical Dressage

Dressage – dres·sage (drə säzh’) n. The guiding of a horse through a series of complex maneuvers by slight movements of the rider’s hands, legs, and weight.  [French, preparation, training, dressage, from dresser, to set up, arrange, train, from Old French drecier, to set up, arrange. See dress.]

I just spent the last 2-3 hours reading as much as I could from this great blog, SustainableDressage.net by Theresa Sandin. For anyone who wants a lot of detail about the hows and whys of riding Dressage, plus a coverages of the bits, bridles, saddles and fit, gadgets, including an amazing explanation of the use of spurs; all of it has amazing explanations including animations, drawings of anatomy and how it is all affected. I truly enjoyed reading and had a hard time stopping as everything she was saying, my dressage trainer, Kathy Daly of KDEquine Training  has said before to me. (It’s helpful that kathy is a USEF Dressage judge, too – she knows what to look for in a show and what to emphasize, like anything that is a co-efficient!) You can read my comments about finally ‘getting the feel’ of melding with my horse so we can become at one in the ‘My Horses’ post.

Below is an excerpt from her blog on the half-halt: (Original post by Dmitri Gromov)

The Combined Half-Halt

The rider feels the outside hindleg (or whichever one’s whos step shall be halfhalted) lift and protract, through her seat. As the hind-leg is protracted a driving leg aid on that same side will cause the horse to step further in under his body. When the hoof lands the aid will need to release and let seat and rein aids take over.

The seat “holds” the movement for a fraction of a second by gently transferring weight backwards. This can be done as discretely as by the rider pressing the nape of her neck against the back of her collar. If more is needed the horse can be held by the legs and thighs for a fraction of a second and the oscillating movement through the riders back can be slowed.

The rein on the same side as the supporting hindleg supports the seat action by asking for a slightly higher carriage of the head and thus a lifting of the base of the neck, and for slowing the forehand down. The rein aid can also help to bend the grounded hindleg, but when a horse has become that permeable, this multi-aided half-halt is hardly needed anymore.

Breaking down the actions of the half-halt this way clearly shows that it is something of extremely short duration. The phases of the step where the horse protracts the hindleg and plants it on the ground, supports his weight over it until it has reached the plumb line from the hip, is no longer than 1/2 second. So in a younger, less educated, slower reacting re-schoolee this will have no other effect than upsetting him. For this great majority of horses, the 2 part half-halt will be needed to further their education.

The 2 Part Half-Halt

The 2 part half-halt is by definition not a half-halt but a schooling half-halt, or a precursor to a half-halt. … More at http://www.sustainabledressage.com/collection/halfhalt.php

Tags: dressage, half-halt, horses, riding, USDF, USEF