Horseback Riding 101

Lesson 4: Beginning to Ride: Walk and Halt

Exercises at walk and halt

Now you know how to ask a horse to walk and get a result, and how to ask him to halt and get a result. Here are some exercised you can do to strengthen your use of the aids and make the transition to walk or halt smoother.

1. Ask the horse to walk forward by using a mild kick. Allow him to walk about halfway down the side of the arena. Then ask for a halt. Try to use more seat and less hand. So, before you want the halt, sit ‘heavy’ on your horse, then close the leg and pull back. When he has stood for three seconds or so, ask for the walk again, but ask using slightly less pressure or kick than before. If he doesn’t respond, go back to the amount of strength you used when you did get the desired result. Then bring him back to a halt using more seat and less hand than you did the time before. Repeat this walk to halt to walk exercise, increasing your use of subtle aids (pressing rather than kicking to start the walk, sitting rather than pulling back hard to get the halt) each time. Do not stop and start at the same place in the arena each time; horses learn by repetition and the horse will begin to make the transitions automatically if he does it more than once or twice at exactly the same spot. And that won’t teach you anything about the amount of pressure to use and so on. Do not keep the exercise up so long that either of you gets bored, but do try to accomplish a net improvement in your technique, no matter how small.

And don’t forget the carrot for the horse after you work him.

NOTE ON TREATS: Some barns prohibit giving their horses treats. Some barns require that you put bits of carrot or apple in the horse’s feed bucket, and old horsemen will tell you to do this because, they say, hand-feeding makes horses ‘mouthy,’ that is, prone to bite.

I agree only partially. I have hand-fed all my horses and never had one get ‘mouthy’ on me. On the other hand, I’ve seen horses that were just plain ‘mouthy’ from the start, and continued to be even after all treats were delivered in the feed bucket. So I would say use common sense: ask the barn or owner about each horse or their general rules, and follow their rules and advice.

If you are allowed to feed treats after a ride, do so right after you remove the bit and put the halter on. The closer to the lesson, the more the horse is likely to associate the treat with a job well done.

When feeding carrots, either get baby carrots, or break big carrots into four or five pieces. Put each piece on the flat palm of your hand and offer it up to the horse to snuffle off with his big, soft lips. Reach up far enough that he doesn’t have to stretch down or tug against the crossties.

If you feed apples, NEVER give a horse a whole, or even half, apple. It can get lodged in their throat and suffocate them. At home, cut the apple into quarters and feed the same way as carrot pieces. Never give a horse more than two small or one large apple at a time. They love them, but they can cause gastric difficulties if the horse eats too many at once. On the other hand, carrots are related to asafoetida, a plant used to calm stomach upset, so horses can have lots of carrots. In some barns, they may get six or seven in a day from various riders and it doesn’t hurt them.

Another treat you can give is a sugar cube. The advantage is that you can keep a box of them in the car so you will always have a treat on hand without remembering to pack the carrots. Horses do like them, but carrots are better for them, of course.

Some horses also like red and white or green and white round hard peppermints. Some don’t. Try it, though, if the barn permits. And those, too, are easy to keep a supply of without refrigeration in case you have no carrots or apples on hand.

2. In the old days, people rode because it was a much better, faster way to get somewhere than walking. These days, we ride because we love the animals, the exercise, the sport, the competition, or the chance to get out into nature on a natural conveyance. We ride, too, for the human companionship. But it is the companionship with the horse itself that becomes most meaningful to most riders, even if it doesn’t start out that way. (Some are drawn by the thrill of jumping, or the need to compete in an unusual sport.)

It is never too soon to begin making yourself into the classical idea, a horse-person; the ability to become as much one with the horse as it is possible to be while you have your human body to house your spirit and the horse has his equine one.

You can begin to make this connection at the walk by using mindfulness techniques, once you are comfortable enough with physical techniques to take your mind and spirit elsewhere.

The first mindfulness technique you might try is this: At the walk, soften your eyes—that is, allow them to unfocus slightly and take in more of what is beside, below and above you. When you do this, you will be experiencing something more akin to the way horses observe their world than the way humans with our tight focus generally do.

A second one is to listen to the horse’s breathing as he walks and try to relax your own physical rhythms to that cadence.

If you do these two things, you will begin to realize that you are being permitted to ride atop a powerful natural beast that seems actually to be fairly happy in his work. Would you be as happy with weight on your back directing your movement? Probably not. Naturally, you have a much large brain, but let’s face it, the horse has a much larger body and you couldn’t really force him to do this unless he wanted to at some level. The horse is doing this for you.

Now, connect with the horse physically as closely as you do with your family dog. Bend forward at the waist or hips, and lie right down on the horse’s mane. If you are feeling brave, lay the reins on his neck and, for a moment, reach down and hug him around his neck as you walk.

Sit back up and let the reins slip through your hand to the buckle. Lean back as far as you dare, sliding one hand along his back across the croup and as close to the dock, the place where his tail hangs, as you can.

Doing these exercises will supple you for riding, and they will also begin to banish any distrust you might have for horses.

All this is not to say that horses cannot and will not do things that, to us, are stupid or dangerous. But it begins to bring you to understand that the horse is a sovereign beast that cooperates with us in extraordinary ways and can give us extraordinary experiences. The fact that we must take care around them is mainly due to their great size and speed, and not to any animosity they bear us. With very, very few exceptions, horses do not want to hurt humans. If they do, it is generally because they are acting instinctively out of fear, in short, doing just what we do when we are afraid. The difference is that they are a different species and so we don’t fully understand that and certainly, we cannot do what they do. (Many of us would love to be able to take off on our own feet at 23 miles per hour if something truly scared us!)

And that brings us to the next section….

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