Horseback Riding 101

Lesson 4: Beginning to Ride: Walk and Halt

How to halt a horse

The next thing you need to know is how to make the horse stop walking and stand. It, too, is easy.

Sit deep in the saddle, stop the motion of your hips, press both calves into his sides a little, and squeeze back on the reins. Add a ‘whoa’ if you need it.

And here’s how to accomplish all that.

Make the decision to halt, and decide where. As you get there, stiffen your lower back slightly so your hips stop following the horse. He will feel the resistance and slow down. Now pull back on the reins toward your hips and absolutely no higher than your waist. If you find you cannot get any ‘tug’ without raising your hands higher or pulling them behind yourself or leaning back, your reins are way too long. Shorten them and try again.

ESSENTIAL NOTE: Pulling upward on the reins can be very dangerous. The bit will hurt the roof of the horse’s mouth and to avoid the pain, he may do the only thing that makes sense to him: try to rise above what’s hurting him. In short, he may rear. While bucking is disconcerting and may cause a fall of the rider, a rear is dangerous. A horse has a hard time balancing on only his hind legs and may come over backwards on top of the rider. Experienced riders who feel the start of a rear for any reason (and it would be on a green horse—an untrained horse—rather than due to something they did with their hands) will fling their weight forward and kick the horse hard to bring his front feet back into contact with the ground. Beginners have neither the feel nor the tools for that. So the obvious solution is don’t even entertain the possibility. In other words, while you’re on a horse’s back, NEVER raise your hands higher than your waist.

A good halt is harder to accomplish than a good transition to the walk because you must engage everything you do at the walk, but add resistance.

Beginners’ biggest mistake is usually in not using leg pressure to accomplish a halt. But taking the legs off the horse’s side makes the horse think you’re abandoning him. Your legs not only convey what you want the horse to do; they give him a significant source of mental support as well as physical encouragement. Some horses halted without ‘leg’ will fall apart, literally swing their hind ends around. It’s not dangerous, but it is uncomfortable and doesn’t look very nice, either. And it risks injury to the horse; the horse has abandoned being athletic, and he still does have a hundred extra pounds or more on his back to balance. He needs to keep his muscles engaged even when halting and standing.

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