"The Half halt is a hardly visible, almost simultaneous, coordinated action of the seat, the legs and the hand of the rider, with the object of increasing the attention and balance of the horse before the execution of several movements or transitions to lesser and higher paces. In shifting slightly more weight on the horse’s quarters, the engagement of the hind legs and balance on the haunches are facilitated for the benefit of the lightness of the forehand and the horse’s balance as a whole" (AHSA rule book).

If you understood that, you are half way there. The confusion comes not from the half halt itself but from the proliferation of ways to do one. Many ways exist because horses need constant rebalancing. Each specific loss of balance needs a different correction. But, in general, the half halt is any signal that slows the horse’s shoulders and speeds up his hindquarters. In this way, it rocks the horse back on his haunches so he is more uphill, in a more ready position to perform a maneuver. He is poised over his haunches like an airplane ready to take off. The signal can be given with the weight alone, with the reins acting alone (together or separately), or in some combination of the weight, leg and rein. Different half halts can be used to rebalance or to engage the horse’s body or even his mind.

The most common half halt comes from the weight, the leg, and the rein. This half halt is used to rebalance a horse that is on his forehand. Think of the horse like a teeter-totter: the horse that has dumped his weight on his shoulders, front legs and head and neck has distributed too much weight to his forehand. To redistribute the weight to the hindquarters, the rider has to rock the teeter-totter the other way. "How you do it: as your legs urge the horse forward, pull your shoulder blades back, push your chest out, and sit down on your seat bones. Brace your back muscles. Don’t let yourself move back and forth with the horse anymore…Then close your hands on the reins using short, firm repeated movements…as soon as the horse pauses, ask him to go by relaxing your hands and wrists" (Denby-Wrightson). This type of half halt requires good timing and synchronization of the rider’s weight, leg, and rein. Bad timing can result in a clash of aids where the rider is telling the horse to "go" and "whoa" at the same time.

The better the rider’s seat is, the better the half halt will be. A rider who is bouncing on his horse will have very little effect. "The effectiveness of a half-halt depends on the rider’s ability to engage his seat. The better he knows how to coordinate the asking aids from seat and legs with receiving hands, the better the quality of the half-halt will be" (Von Ziegner). And in the same vein, the better the horse is moving through his back, the better the rider can sit, and so can influence the horse more.

If the horse ignores a subtle half halt by the rider, he should be corrected. If the rider stretches up, up, up to collect the trot, and the horse barges ahead, the next half halt may be so gross as laying on the horse’s back. If the horse routinely ignores the half halt, it should be followed by a full halt. So, if the horse won’t hesitate a little when the rider asks, he must hesitate a lot.

Some horses will drop their head and neck so low, they come behind the bit. Often this is in conjunction with falling on the forehand. At other times, the horse is completely through his back, working nicely, but the rider wants more collection. In both scenarios, the rider can raise the head and neck of the horse with a half halt. This is very difficult to do without hollowing the horse’s back. No horse can be forced to collect. So, the astute ride will use this half halt while always keeping in mind the purity of the paces. He will use both hands in a gentle lifting motion, in rhythm with the horse’s gaits. "In order to lighten the forehand and prompt the engagement of the hind legs, we shall make use of the half-halt, which, preserving the forward movement does not impair the activeness of the hindquarters. It should be performed on a taut rein, with a moderate elevation of both wrists on a vertical plane" (Froissard).

The stronger the horse’s evasion in dropping the head and neck, the stronger the half halt can be. "Close the fingers on the reins and move the hands quickly and forcefully upward: follow quickly with a "give." This causes the horse to raise its head and neck and transfer to the rear the weight put forward excessively on the shoulders" (Littauer) In the ultimate extreme, such as a buck, the rider also needs to raise the horse’s head and neck. A violent bucker will drop his head all the way down, and kick up his heels. At this point, the half halt becomes more forceful, a sharp yank upward with one rein. By using one rein to raise the head and neck, the rider prevents the horse from leaning on the bit for balance during the buck.

Outside Rein

In dressage, we speak of moving the horse from inside leg to outside rein. As the horse bends around the inside leg, which acts like a pole or pillar to turn around, the outside rein must catch the added energy. Otherwise, the centrifugal force of the circle will send the horse spinning out his outside shoulder. This is called "falling out of the circle", or "falling out over the outside shoulder." One way the outside rein can be used is in gentle rhythm with the outside shoulder. The rider can sponge the rein, reminding the horse to keep that shoulder in and to maintain the energy in a forward direction rather than letting it spill out the side. In posting trot, the rider might squeeze with the outside fist during the sit phase, or open and close the outside elbow in rhythm with the rise and fall.

If the horse has already fallen out, the rider can lower the outside rein and tap the horse with the outside leg to bring him back to the circle line. The rider might also use the outside rein in conjunction with a tensing of the outside thigh, to control the shoulders and keep them from falling out.

Inside rein

The inside rein acts together with the inside leg when the horse loses the bend. The leg acts first, but the rein reinforces the action. In time, the rein will be needed less and less as the horse learns to "bend around the inside leg." The inside rein can also act to slow the inside hind leg so that the horse can balance on the circle. The gentle use of the inner rein can be used to "hold the inner hind leg down so that the horse can turn in proper balance when ridden on a large circle. This also enables the outside legs which

have the longer way to go, to have enough time to step forward and under… " (Max Ritter v. Weyrother).

"It must be quite confusing for a novice to be exposed to different terms which basically mean the same thing. Halbe Parade, demi arret, halbe Anhaltungen, all these different words have the same meaning, namely: to put a little more weight intermittently on one or the other hind leg in order to prepare the horse for a specific task" (Mikolka) All the gaits begin in the hind legs. Therefore, to prepare the horse for any transition, the rider has to prepare the hind legs, weighting them a little more, asking them to bend and flex a little more. A transition is any change, not just a change from gait to gait. So, transitions include changes within the gait (for instance, from collected trot to medium), changes from gait to gait, changes of direction, and changes from movement to movement (for instance, from shoulder-in to haunches in). To warn the horse of the change, and to ask for more power from his hind legs, the rider gives one or more half halts. In this way, the rider can influence either hind leg, using a slight shift of weight, reinforced with the leg.

In order to make the half halts effective, the rider must know exactly when each hind leg is coming forward, and exactly when it is on the ground. As the horse and rider advance, the half halts become more and more subtle and more specific about which leg they influence. "As soon as the horse reaches the stage where it can be worked completely straight within himself then the half-halts enter a new stage of application. At this stage of training it is more important which hind-leg of the horse is worked with the half-halt and not which rein is used for giving the half-halt" (Mikolka)

There are two schools on half halts used in jumping: the hunter school and the jumper school Since most hunter work is done in a half seat or a forward seat, the rider’s weight is removed from the equation. Most hunter half halts are done from the rein alone, and should be used sparingly. Littauer, the father of the forward seat school in America, condemns half halts. In a hunter class, the horse should flow forward with little assistance from the rider. Visible half halts ruin the quiet picture and force the horse to listen too much to his rider. "Half-halts should not be used when jumping. Though some talented riders do place the horse for the take off by means of one or several half-halts, and then release him at the jump as one would release a coiled spring, this practice makes the horse dependent on the split second timing by the rider and he no longer can figure out himself the correct approach to the jump" (Littauer).

In the jumper arena, most riders sit in more of a balanced seat approaching the jump. They go forward at the jump. They can use their weight to half halt and to have greater influence over their horses. Jumper riders need to be able to influence the horse’s take off so they can help him through trickier combinations and turns than the hunter rider faces. So, a jumper rider on a Grand Prix course may use nearly as many half halts as a Grand Prix dressage rider in a test and yet a hunter rider may use very few.

Another function of the half halt may be to warn the horse mentally of a change, or even just to keep his attention. This type of half halt may a slight push from the rider’s seat or leg and a slight squeeze on the reins to hold him, or it may only be a deep breath from the rider. It is evokes sort of a "hurry up and wait" attitude. The leg and seat tell him, "be ready," but the hand tells him, "not yet." This should make the horse hesitate for just a fraction of a second. "The half-halt is derived from the combined operation of retardment and drive-on. It has an important regulating and refining effect on the horse, and that is why its application is frequent and very useful during the course of riding. Furthermore, by half-halts executed in smooth and quick rotations, the mental contact with the horse can be satisfactorily achieved" (Lt. Col. A. L.d'Enrody). This "retardment" is not necessarily a slowing down of the horse’s body, but should slow his mind down. The horse begins to listen to his rider more. The rider, in the final stages of training, is no longer making gross movement in the half halt, but may only experience a "passive tension."

The horse in turn, may not show a visible physical reaction to the half halt, but both horse and rider are intently aware of each other. The rider feels like the horse could move forward in a medium canter, lift up in passage, or halt squarely at a moment’s notice. The horse feels balanced and ready to submit to the slightest movement of the rider. "The characteristic feature of the half-halt is that the retardment involved is carried out only to the point where the horse MENTALLY accepts the function by its momentary yielding (the sign of its willingness to retard), whether or not the physical movement of retardment has been completed" (Lt. Col. A. L.d'Enrody). If you understood that, you’re almost home.

Works Cited

Denby-Wrightson, Kathryn. (1981) The Beginning Dressage Book. New York: Arco.

D’Enrody, Lt. Col. A.L. Give Your Horse a Chance.