After changing saddles so that Basse is now using Vallu's saddle (bigger head plate and different panels) with a sheepskin pad underneath, Basse has been on fire! 🔥 As in let'sgoeverywherereallyquicklyanddonothingelse fast type of on fire... This has meant that I have suddenly a lot more forwards and a lot less balance so riding him suddenly felt like riding a motorcycle as I could not do corners without fearing that Basse might just fall over ⚖
However, luckily I follow Anna Ross - Altogether Equestrian on Facebook because she posts daily tips for riding (not just for dressage riders!!) and a couple of days ago she posted this: "Make a halt transition after every corner to help your horse learn to stay in balance. So many horses fall in on corners and run making it difficult to set up movements. Teach your horse to wait and you can turn it into a half halt later."
So off I went to practise this with Basse... And my god, it worked! Yes, he does know what half halts are so it's not like he's learning something entirely new here, but this exercise gave me a way of gently reminding him that he does actually sometimes need to listen to me, even when all he wants to do is go fast 🐎💨
It really helped with our walk to canter transitions too. I don't want to be constantly trying to get him to slow down, I don't like having to nag and I really don't want him to start thinking backwards now that he's finally starting to go forwards. So having him to halt after the corner and then pick up canter again meant that it was just once that he had to actually slow down and then I could let him canter off again #speedmonster After a couple of times he actually started to expect the halt transitions (clever horse!) so we managed to slow down in the corner 🙌🏻
Have you tried this exercise before?
It really helped with our walk to canter transitions too. I don't want to be constantly trying to get him to slow down, I don't like having to nag and I really don't want him to start thinking backwards now that he's finally starting to go forwards. So having him to halt after the corner and then pick up canter again meant that it was just once that he had to actually slow down and then I could let him canter off again #speedmonster After a couple of times he actually started to expect the halt transitions (clever horse!) so we managed to slow down in the corner 🙌🏻
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| Look! A straight horse in canter!! |
that sounds like a great exercise! not too dissimilar to halting a strong horse after a jump, i suppose. my horse does *not* already have a nicely installed half halt yet haha so we definitely need to practice more halting before we can turn it into a half halt.... good food for thought!
ReplyDeleteIt's a fab exercise, Basse's half halts have actually improved SO much after doing this for the last couple of rides.
DeleteThis is a great exercise to keep in the back of my mind!
ReplyDeleteI'm definitely going to be using this a lot for the next couple of months! It also means you end up practising halts so it's getting us ready for competitions!
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