The key to developing a good Half Pass... is not to ride Half Pass!

We start this season developing a fluent and correctly positioned Travers, in walk, trot and canter - which is the same as Half Pass but on the track instead of a diagonal line. Our first task is to make sure your horse is working straight into two reins. Your horse then bends around your inside leg, with your horses chest perpendicular to the line of travel. A common mistake is when the rider pulls on the inside rein to try to create bend, then the horse's chest turns out - this is incorrect. 

Mistake number two is incorrect aiding and rider posture. Often I see the rider slipping to the outside and clamping the outside leg on to try to shove the quarters over - we need the exact opposite! In this lesson I’m going to teach you the correct positioning and aids, starting in Travers, as it is much easier for you to spot when you need to make a correction. Then, when it comes to the Half Pass later on, we simply move our Travers onto a diagonal line, and it will be super easy and scoring good marks from the judge!

Learn how Half Pass can unlock magical cadence in your horse - this fun!

The purpose of this lesson is to develop uphill balance first of all in Half Pass, and also to develop your seat. Often I see riders becoming tight in their seat in sitting trot which kills the pace. This lesson is going to teach you to ride forwards with an effective seat in Half Pass.

In part 1, we will be 'playing' with the trot, alternating between collected and working. You will start to feel magical cadence developing as the trot steps become higher and more bouncy, which is so much fun!

In part 2, we progress to full transitions, from trot to walk, back to trot. As we learned in the spring season, the downward transition should be 'forward'. The same rules apply here - your horse should keep stepping into the bridle through the downward transition to keep the connection from the hind leg, through the body. Then for the upward transition, your horse really needs to engage their core and their outside hind leg to push up into trot, which will do wonders to improve their strength and balance, which we need to develop a beautifully uphill Half Pass!

Learn how to completely transform your horses canter and develop beautiful Half Pass!

We start this lesson with a reminder of  how to adjust your rider posture to collect the canter on a circle before progressing into Travers, which is the best way to develop Half Pass.

Your seat and your shift of balance in your upper body tells your horse to collect, and there is very little reliance on the reins at this stage as your horses hind quarters 'sit down', and the pelvis rotates as they then swing their hind leg further under their body to collect the canter for a few steps, and then swing your seat forwards into working canter again. This is challenging for your horse, so only collect a few steps at a time. Eventually the Half Pass which develops as a result of this work will be uphill and beautifully balanced.

This key exercise is the foundation, not only for canter Half Pass, but also for canter pirouettes because we are teaching your horse how to to read your body posture and learn not to panic when we start to compress the canter and carry the weight on the hind quarters. With this correct foundation in place, your horse will already understand the mechanics of the pirouette… how cool is that!?

Our finale this season is Raffles debut medium 'Top Gun' freestyle!

But first, in our final lesson we progress to direct transitions from canter to walk - back to canter, whilst maintaining the travers positioning throughout the exercise. As always, I am showing you our real-life training where Raffles is learning the exercises. You can almost see the cogs turning in his brain as he is working out how to organise his body in the travers shape and perform the transitions at the same time!

My aim is to show you the 'proof of the pudding' and demonstrate that by working on all of the exercises I have taught you in this season, when we contest our debut medium freestyle at a British Dressage affiliated comptition our trot and canter Half Passes are beautifully presented and scoring good marks from the judge. 

If you have been working through this season with your horse, like Raffles, you will find the Half Pass easy - simply think of riding travers along a diagonal line. Everything is exactly the same - your horses chest is perpendicular to the line of travel, with their ears and your thumbs pointing towards the marker, your weight is on your inside seat bone with your horse bending around your inside leg, and you aid with your outside leg then let it hand neutral again… enjoy!