When in Doubt, Half Halt

11/19/2015

When I rode with Chemaine last month, those were almost her parting words to me. I actually think I heard her say, "half halt, half halt, half halt!"

I've kept that idea in my mind over the past month. When things seem to be going haywire, and I can't figure out how to get back on track, it will occur to me that I should probably half halt. Of course, I'm usually about 45 seconds too late, but at least it is now occurring to me to half halt as a solution. I got a great reminder of that last night when I rode Izzy.

I am realllly hungry now!!!!!

Before I go on, I should point out that Izzy is not easy to ride. He is not scary like Sydney was, although when people watch me ride him, I know they are thinking thank goodness she's on him and I am not.

I might be frustrated at how hard he's making things, but I am not scared of him. In fact, after he nearly flipped me over his back twice last night after scooting forward - at the walk, I just laughed at how silly he is.

Every day that I see him, I marvel at the things that he now takes in stride: he is a doll in the cross ties, he can go through the gate without bolting past me, he leads quietly, he lowers his giraffe neck to the ground with a simple touch to his poll, and he even lifts his 12,000,000 pound feet up for picking out. But ...

Each ride is a painstaking ordeal. I know we're making progress, but he questions the need to frame up every single day. Are you sure I can't run around with my nose sticking waaaay up here? And when my answer is no, dude, you can't, he squeals, grunts, shakes his head, and looks for a way around me.

Every. Single. Time.

Right now, I am doing the same exercises for each ride. I start out on a circle at the walk and bring him to a halt and ask his him to soften before walking on again. We do this about 400 times. As we're walking and halting around the circle, I am slowly spiraling down to the other end of the arena by leg yielding into the open end of the circle. Before he knows it, we're at the scary end. As we leg yield, I do lots of halt halts to encourage him to step over instead of forward.

When we've done that spiral down to the end while half halting to both directions, I do it at the trot. Of course, he questions that as well: are you sure that's what you want me to do because it feels really hard, and I would rather buck, squeal, or run off somewhere else. My answer is always the same, a hard jerk with the outside rein to say no, stay right here.

It's tedious, and it's frustrating that he is such a slow learner, but little by little he is figuring it out. After several firm jerks, he quits trying to run off. And after about 30 minutes, just as I am losing daylight, I feel his brain engage, and he asks: wait, you mean you just want me to trot around with this bit carried softly in my mouth? Why didn't you say so?!

And then we're done. Last night, I had to be a Nazi about the half halts. Every single time he poked his nose into the air or tried to run through my aids, I half halted hard until little by little, the half halts came more from my core than my hands. My response was always the same - an audible nope, accompanied by a tightening of my core, and rein if I needed it.

We're getting there - it's slow, but it's happening. And the exciting thing is that when he finally relaxes through his neck and lets his back swing, he is so fancy and uphill. Like Chemaine told me last month, the great scores come from riding that knife edge of "almost out of control." Izzy's got it in spades!

jenj

11/19/2015 07:33:36 am

Oh man, I have so been here with Paddy. Like, how many w/t transitions do we have to do before you figure out that we're not going to go mach one-Haffie at the trot? Are you seriously that dumb? How many times? 400? 190234781? 9234871872398184786983498? And, dude, it would go so much easier for you if you would actually do what I ask, instead of trying out every possible evasion you can think of. We could have this ride done in 5 minutes instead of 50.

The only good news i have is that someday, eventually (after you've torn your hair out for the Nth time), they do figure it out. Mostly.

Bakersfield Dressage link

11/22/2015 06:01:42 am

Yes, yes, yes - EXACTLY! :0)

Marlane

11/19/2015 06:33:32 pm

It is my understanding that for a horse to carry its front end in a frame ( head vertical, poll bent neck curved) takes quite a bit of muscle strength all over their bodies, especially when the neck and poll are involved. As far as I know a horse who is learning to do this can only do it for so long before they are in discomfort. I also was lead to believe that any jerking to the mouth led to small stress fractures on the bars. Correct me if I am wrong here. I thought that the release of pressure was the biggest learning tool. I am confused.

11/19/2015 07:36:23 pm

You're right, Marlane - carrying yourself in a frame with a rider on your back is hard. That's why Izzy gets so resistant to the idea and tries very hard to talk me out of it. Rest assured, he gets plenty of walk breaks and is encouraged to stretch long and low.

Unfortunately, he's still in the I don't think I need to do this stage. He's also quite large and very powerful. He knows he's large and powerful which means he tries to use his brute strength to ignore my softer aids and requests.

I am not a proponent of jerking on horses' mouths or whipping or spurring them into submission. I am a firm believer in not getting hurt however. When I say I jerk on his mouth, I am using a fat lozenge snaffle, and I am only jerking on him for the few seconds that it takes to get his 1,200 pounds under control.

When I rode tonight, I had to use that technique a few times, but then I saw him really think about whether he wanted to try that particular evasion again.

And you absolutely right about the release of pressure. That's my goal for every second of the ride - getting him to soften to the inside rein. In fact, we always finish at the walk with gentle flexing from side to side where I ask him to give me one side of his body or the other. As soon as he softens and flexes, I release the inside rein and pat him.

If I simply held firmly with the rein as he bolted forward or sideways waiting for him to "give to the pressure," I'd be eating dirt every day. I will never win a tug of war contest with this horse. When he ignores the outside rein and grabs onto it and runs off, he is putting both of us in danger, A sharp jerk tells him that he cannot ignore my outside rein. Occasionally, I add the whip to the outside shoulder to say the same thing. It sends a quick message which he can hear very quickly. The instant he stops running off or gives to the pressure, he gets an immediate release.

11/20/2015 01:14:55 pm

Thanks for the reply and explaining in detail, and I understand more now !!

Nicole

11/20/2015 03:23:19 am

I do agree with this comment. It's been...what? Just under a year since Izzy has been in consistent work under saddle? No matter how muscular a horse looks, it doesn't mean they have the strength and stamina to hold themselves in a frame for extended periods of time. That strength can take a while to build. My understanding and experiences have been that you work on the quality of the gaits *first*, especially with a green horse, and the frame comes on its own (or at least with much more ease) once the horse learns to carry him/herself. Pulling a horse into a frame just results in teaching the horse to work on the forehand because it's harder for them to push from the hind end when their bodies are compressed: it is the opposite of riding back-to-front. Or so I've been taught by my trainers. My horse had been started under saddle only a year before I bought him and he did *not* take well to being asked consistently to work in a frame before he was physically ready. He actually dumped my trainer at the time during one of these efforts. It took almost two years for him to develop the stamina to be able to work in self-carriage, and even then it only comes after a proper warm-up: he is an Appendix and while he has plenty of muscle, he is not naturally built for uphill movement.

11/20/2015 04:57:57 am

Thanks for sharing, Nicole. I must not have been clear in my post. I am not forcing Izzy into a false frame. I am asking him to 1) not run off - literally. HIs first evasion technique is to shoot his head straight up so that I have no leverage, and then he bolts (or tries to). This is when I have to give a jerk.

2) Everything I do is about asking for forward while softening to the inside rein. I know that he is a green horse, but he is also a fully developed adult horse (7 1/2) who has lived his entire life running around on pasture. He's not a 4 year old who is still growing and figuring out where his legs are.

3) I work closely with a very well respected dressage trainer. We are not asking Izzy for second level collection. We are asking him to accept the bit and maintain a steady rhythm, and if he will stretch over his topline, all the better. :0)

11/20/2015 01:29:29 pm

Thanks Nicole for sharing what you have experienced. My background is in training slowly. I am a native of England where I learned the classical training methods. ( Lunging, long reining then riding) This takes at least two years and maybe three to have a horse develop enough to consistently be " in a frame" I think that it helps also to have a horse with a long neck. I have also trained horses in the USA as I live here now. I was quite frankly horrified by what I saw when I first came here in the 1970's. That was before the " new age trainers" came along. However there are still those who want results fast. I have seen a lot of tie downs and short side reins, the worst is tying horse heads around to the side teach them to yield to the bit. I am so glad that many trainers who are in the limelight are teaching the value of the release of pressure as a reward and also respect for the horse. More of a 50/50 instead of the old ways of submit or else. I know that it has worked very well for me.

Teresa link

11/21/2015 09:46:13 am

I totally get what you are saying in this post. A horse holding it's head way up is inverted in the back which is not good for the spine and building up the under muscle which will make it hard to carry themselves appropriately. Not to mention that it can be dangerous as an evasion.

Getting them to lower their head is not the same as a false frame.

A few weeks ago I commented to my coach that I was getting tired of having the same ride over and over so I get that too. But what I find with my green bean (Carmen) is that while I was expecting a steady upwards learning curve she's developing more of a stepwise fashion- so flat line, then a jump up. If you graphed us, we would look like a staircase not a hill.

11/22/2015 06:10:21 am

I should have asked YOU to write this post, Teresa, but I didn't seem to express myself quite as well as I had hoped. You got exactly what I meant. I am not asking for collection, but his head has to be somewhere down closer to Earth's atmosphere. And he's not just carrying it high, his nose is actually pointed at the sky when he's evading, even at the walk!

A staircase is certainly a good way to describe progress! :0)

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