THE HALT

The first thing to always remember with your halt transition is to think forward. As you prepare your horse for a halt, you want to be sure that he is moving forward into the bit and is in front of your leg.  He needs to be round and over his back in order to make a square halt.  One of the exercises that is very effective in pretty much every horse is: While you are working along the wall at the walk, maintaining the elements that I mentioned earlier, picture traveling straight forward to the right; take the mechanics of a leg yield and transfer them to a halt. Your inside leg needs to be at the girth engaging your horse's hind end to travel underneath himself. When you feel that he has good energy, rhythm, and is round over his back, is light and soft on the bit and supple in the neck and shoulder gently and gradually close your fist on your outside rein while applying a steady pressure with your inside leg.  As you are doing this, sit tall in your saddle and deep with your seat. By closing off these aides you are harnessing the energy that you had created and sending your horse forward into the halt.  

Mario in Halt with RA Santiago~Andalusian Stallion

It is always good when you are beginning this exercise to have someone on the ground so that they can tell you when your horse is square. This is how you develop the feeling. If you don't have someone on the ground, try to use mirrors. One of the things that you want to be sure doesn't happen is: upon stopping, your horse grabs the bit and shoves his neck forward and out!  If he does this,  make sure that the horse learns to have a steady contact first and listens to your seat aides.  The energy that you create with your leg travels to the horse's mouth, to your hand, to your elbow, to your shoulder, to your lower back to your seat.  

The softer you can be with your hand and leg and use more of your seat, the better quality  halt you will end up with.   AND don't forget the most important part of training your horse is to enjoy what you are doing. Always one step at a time!