Ride Your Dressage Horse From Half Halt to Half Halt

The secret to riding your dressage horse like a professional is to ride from half halt to half halt rather than from movement to movement. The half halt is your connective tissue between the dressage movements. The half halts are what make your ride or dressage test look like it flows seamlessly like a dance.

One of Olympian Robert Dover’s favorite sayings is, “Amateurs ride from movement to movement. Professionals ride from half halt to half halt.”

So when you think about your ride, don’t focus on the individual dressage movements such as, “I do a 10 meter circle here, and then I do a leg-yield there. After that, I do a lengthening across the diagonal.” Instead, think, “Do a half halt to prepare for the turn from the centerline to the circle. Give another half halt to balance my horse before I start the leg yield. Give another half halt to coil the spring of the hind legs so my horse can “boing” into the lengthening.”

So, think of the half halt as the doorway through which you do every change of gait, movement, or bend. Without half halts, your ride will just look like chopped up individual dressage movements.

Click here for more info on dressage half halts.