The speed we ride at is extremely important. Sometimes a very slow speed is exactly what is needed to develop a feel or learn to sit the trot. Sometimes it’s effective at bringing the back up. Riders love to go slow! It feels safe and in control! However, often the speed the rider wants to use is a bit too slow for the horse to develop properly.
Here’s an example to perhaps help you understand: The water skier has to go exactly the right speed in order to stay on top of the water. Wider, longer skis can handle a slower speed, much like a stronger, more powerfully and naturally engaged horse can more readily collect (go slower). The skis plane out — or you can say the horse planes out (that is, keeps his back up and hind legs engaged) with less speed because of the skis and the horse’s inherent qualities.
Now the narrow skis or the slalom skis, the barefoot skier, etc. and the hollow backed horse with his hind legs carried out behind his tail, are different. For sure the skier needs more speed in order to stay balanced and on top of the water. Very often it helps the horse as well to keep the back up and hind legs reaching.
It feels like you are on top of a rounded suspension bridge when you get it right. When you use the half halt, it feels better, not like a pulling match, or an empty sponge. After the half halt the horse’s quality of his gait improves. How often do we see this in reality? Rarely, because there are so many things that have to be right to make it work. It’s just difficult! I guess that’s what keeps us trying. It’s a great challenge.
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Since many would argue that you can’t do a proper half halt at training and possibly even first level because the horse isn’t strong enough to rebalance themselves on to their hind end so they can maintain a bridge-like back and also slow down, when the judge says “needs half halts,” the rider again concludes, “I have to slow down.” It’s my belief that at training and first level we sometimes need to go a bit quick until the horse gets stronger. They will never get stronger by going slowly to begin with. At second level and above come the proofs. If the horse stepped under and created a fine back for the rider to sit on, second level won’t be a struggle.
I can’t imagine how dressage could be done without a half halt, it’s that important. But we get very different results when we half halt a great horse versus a poor one, or an advanced horse, versus a beginner horse. If the half halt is, like it says in the rules, “a collecting exercise,” how can we do that with slow hind legs? How can we do that when a horse has no collection yet? So, we use full halts and other transitions, and gradually we make some progress in shifting our horse’s balance, but not if we let the horse dribble from gait to gait and not be prompt and yes, quick with the hind legs!
And I hope students, judges and trainers ride and teach every day with an effort to keep learning because this is a very complex and fascinating sport.