Teaching the horse Travers/Quarters in and onto Half Pass

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matt_m

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Hi all,

I wondered if anyone had any suggestions. I am riding a gelding at the moment that is at a stage where I want to start asking something a little different and a bit more demanding of him, he is established in his walk, trot and canter - Good leg yields, off the leg correctly, soft and supple and works in a correct frame and over his topline. Understands a bit of collection and on and back and shows some lovely medium strides when asked.

I have been attempting a little bit of Travers and have hit a brick wall (we all know that riding a horse that knows the job and getting the aids correct is very different to teaching a horse something new, and it's the latter we are talking about here). Firstly, what would you recommend to help encourage the horse to understand that the leg further back request means 'put your bum in' - I am guessing persistence and the help of a schooling whip? Furthermore, when the horse understands the correct bend and listens to the quarters in request, what exercises would you suggest for developing this into half pass i.e. maintaining this position whilst stepping over laterally? I seem to be able to get the position but then asking him to step over into the direction of travel it all falls apart. He is very good at his leg yields where the flexion is the opposite to way of travel and finds that easy.

Any advice or tips appreciated! Thanks in advance.
 
To ride traver I establish a good rhythm in walk with control but impulsion, don't rush and don't let him get on the forehand. Luckily I have a very forward thinking horse so it's more about sitting and controlling the energy for me rather then creating more impulsion. Once he is moving straight and feel in control I ask for more. The aids I rid for traver are inside leg stays still, outside leg move slightly back and goes 'on' when the inside fore comes back, inside hand opens ever so slightly to encourage some bend but outside hand needs to stay quite strong on my boy or he overbends to the inside to avoid working. This is telling him to move the outside leg as he lifts it, I find it more effective then just leaving my leg outside leg 'on'. I hope I've explained what I mean clearly.

Once I've done this I try shoulders in down the longside, go into a 10 meter circles at B/E and the ask for traver as you come out of the circle. My boy is now established at traver and renver in walk down the long side and this is a really good way to test his responsiveness and how well he's listening. trot next :)

Is your horse quite forward thinking?
 
That's great thank you - So I think perhaps using the 10m circle to 'set him up' more and asking for the Travers coming out of it is going to be a good thing to do more of. My next question is once this is going well and steady, what is the best way to develop this into half pass?

I can tell that from 'playing' with him I think he is going to find the actual stepping over a bit difficult initially?

He is not naturally that forward going - not to say he can't be naughty! But we have been working on getting him more off my leg and he is becoming nicely touch sensitive now.
 
I had to use a wall to teach one of mine. He would do it in walk, but not in trot. I saw a demo of baroque riding and the guy was using a wall and doing a very exaggerated angle. I thought of it was good enough for a PRE it was good enough for my mongrel. I cut the corner at a 45 degree angle and then let him reach the wall at that angle then asked him to carry on trotting. He got it in three sessions and now he will reproduce it without any fence or wall, at a correct three track angle. I also start a session with turn on the forehand so he is clear he has to move his back end of my leg.Hope that helps.
 
Hiya!

I definitely agree with the circle to set them up. Even with a school master I would still warm up the exercise using a circle initially. Also for me as well to make sure I'm asking the correct things and especially, looking in the right direction.

Because I'm fairly terrible at explaining I found this nice link which has a picture (!) to help. http://likecrystal.com/use-travers-to-supple-your-horse/
 
With my mare we first did a lot of leg yielding along the wall, then switched to travers. It only took a couple of attempts before she got the idea.
 
matt_m said:
That's great thank you - So I think perhaps using the 10m circle to 'set him up' more and asking for the Travers coming out of it is going to be a good thing to do more of. My next question is once this is going well and steady, what is the best way to develop this into half pass?

I can tell that from 'playing' with him I think he is going to find the actual stepping over a bit difficult initially?

He is not naturally that forward going - not to say he can't be naughty! But we have been working on getting him more off my leg and he is becoming nicely touch sensitive now.
Click to expand...

Forget the HP until he is consistently in front of the leg and has his Traverse solidly ok. Definitely work the traverse to start with coming out of a 10m circle. If still not really getting it then yes the wall can be useful.

When moving onto training a HP for me the concept of riding a travers on the diagonal line is how I find it most useful in my brain. Less emphasis on pushing the horse over laterally and more time on positioning and building it up. I'd do it by coming out of the corner and riding a straight line from (for example) K to C, then tracking right at C. Do this a few times until horse is forward and straight on that diagonal line. This will help with shoulder positioning.
Then introduce a few steps of travers whilst on that line - this is the basis of the HP.
Over time you can then build on the amount of travers steps (HP), the angle (switch to your diag line being K-M) and introducing more flexion. With a view to coming around the corner, shoulder fore position, and sweeping across effortlessly lol!
 
Don't forget body positioning - the horse will follow your body, weight aids so sit in the direction of travel and also turn your body slightly to face the way you want your horses body to face - in the case of travers you turn your hips so they are facing diagonally towards the wall.

A couple of other exercises not mentioned that I do find useful and just to say that in a couple of cases I have taught half pass straight after shoulder in rather than go via travers because the horses in question weren't 'getting' travers or renvers

Anyway - to teach the horse to travel in the direction they are bent I like to use travers and renvers on a circle, for travers this is also a good way to teach pirouettes as over time you can reduce the circle size and you will have a pirouette. Travers is good for a horse who easily moves the hind quarters and not so easily the shoulders as the shoulders have to make a bigger circle than the HQ. Renvers on a circle moves their shoulders easier than hind quarters as the shoulders are on the smaller circle and the hindquarters on a larger circle. This helps to build strength and confidence in the horse that he can move the front and back at any given point.

Another I like is to draw an imaginary line from B to E - start to come along the long side in shoulder in but as you get to E you change the active leg from inside to outside and ensure weight is on the inside stirrup and start to do travers across the imaginary B to E line - a couple of steps to start and move on from there.

If travers and renvers are not working then you could try half pass - its essentially the same movement after all. I start riding down the long side, keep the horse moving straight but ask for lateral bend of the neck then look towards A or C (whichever way you are going), weight the inside stirrup and ask for a step away from the fence.
 
Following this with interest because my horse seems to always want to lead with his shoulder, so would rather turn it into a leg yield and finds SI much more to his liking. I need to find out how he can learn to bend to the inside.
 
JillA said:
Following this with interest because my horse seems to always want to lead with his shoulder, so would rather turn it into a leg yield and finds SI much more to his liking. I need to find out how he can learn to bend to the inside.
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Have you tired renvers instead? Mine understood this much quicker and easier than travers, but lot's of 10m circles into travers helped us.

With half pass, I did lots of shoulder in then ask for sideways (half pass) back to shoulder in then more half pass etc, to introduce the idea of half pass so it was little steps to give her the idea of moving across and around that inside leg. The shoulder should be slightly in front with this movement, so try not to get the hind end to lead, I found that I needed to actively keep my inside leg on to help with the bend as well.
 
JillA said:
Following this with interest because my horse seems to always want to lead with his shoulder, so would rather turn it into a leg yield and finds SI much more to his liking. I need to find out how he can learn to bend to the inside.
Click to expand...

Does your horse know fleschi droit? This is a PK favourite and means that your horse travels forwards normally on a straight line but with bend to one side. In addition neck rein turns are also very useful, if your horse becomes proficient at these two exercises then you can create bend and move the shoulders over at any point during any exercise
 
Wheels said:
Does your horse know fleschi droit? This is a PK favourite and means that your horse travels forwards normally on a straight line but with bend to one side. In addition neck rein turns are also very useful, if your horse becomes proficient at these two exercises then you can create bend and move the shoulders over at any point during any exercise
Click to expand...

Thank you - does that start with flexions to each side and build to a bend? He has lost a shoe so I am confined to walk in the school, good time to work on this sort of stuff
 
Flexions on the ground, mobilisation of the jaw then bend the horses neck so the head comes round to 90 degrees, start with bending away from you as this is easier and build up to bending towards by lifting hand only.

Then move to flexions on board at standstill, bend from raising hand.

When you first try fleschi droit do it from a very slow but active walk, raise inside hand and ask for bend in the same way as before, start with aiming for about 45 degrees, a couple of steps and build it up from there in terms of angle and amount of steps, walk can be up to 90 degrees bent and trot more like 45

Then you can use fleschi droit to prepare for any movement that has bend, voltes, shoulder in, half pass, whatever
 
matt_m said:
That's great thank you - So I think perhaps using the 10m circle to 'set him up' more and asking for the Travers coming out of it is going to be a good thing to do more of. My next question is once this is going well and steady, what is the best way to develop this into half pass?

I can tell that from 'playing' with him I think he is going to find the actual stepping over a bit difficult initially?

He is not naturally that forward going - not to say he can't be naughty! But we have been working on getting him more off my leg and he is becoming nicely touch sensitive now.
Click to expand...

Yes my boy found the initial stepping over difficult, I think it's difficult at first for them as they are stretching the outside of their body more and it's a bit unusual if they haven't done it before. really think about how much angle you're asking for, people often think you need more angle than you do. Do you have mirrors? Also the amount of bend.

I do agree with other comments that your body position is important.

When starting I could only get maybe 2-3 steps before my boy would grind to a stop, that's how he protests when he find's things difficult, bless him! It's important to keep moving forward, especially if you've been working on this with him. Don't let him stop or not listen, if you don't get the desired effect stop asking, move forward and set him up to try again. Quality is far more important than quantity. Once they get the signals and understand it's more about building up strength and suppleness for them. Once I had travers, renvers were easy.

I would really establish the traver prior to starting half pass or you might find he tries to lead too much with his inside shoulder or fall in as you move across the school to compensate for weaker/less established back end control.

The other exercise I find really useful is to go up the centre line and switch from travers to renvers half way, I would say a higher difficult level but a good test of the horse listening, how established they are without a wall for support, and rider accuracy (I do a few straight strides over x as I change).
 
For any lateral work I always break down the movement and see what is required:

- lateral flexion
- lateral bend
- forwards
- response to sideways

I always start the lateral work from the ground and then continue under saddle. So in hand and under saddle:

So the first exercise would be walk halt, stretch to floor, pick up and lateral flexions such that you see the crest flip. Remember flexion is purely at the throatlash area; bend is through the whole body. Then go forwards on a straight line and in walk and trot achieve the lateral flexion with crest flip.

When flexion is achieved you then work on bend. Consecutive 10m circles down the long side so you go from straight to bent through to straight with the accumulative effect of 3 or 4 10m circles in a row.

This is all achieved with the concept of positive steps forwards.

Then I add the giravolta - the idea of roughly a 10m circle in the middle of the school with the head and neck to the inside, quarters to the outside getting the first understanding of yielding forwards and sideways. Focusing on forwards, sideways, softness to the hand, flexion and bend and the release through the body.

So you now have flexion, bend, forwards and yielding to the side.

Then this gets placed to the shoulder-in and you can add transitions whilst in the shoulder in positioning. Then personally I go to renver using the theme of shoulder-in to renver returning to shoulder-in.

For the traver I use a little theme of leg yield head to wall along the track to encourage the theme of moving the quarters away from the outside leg, then in time change the bend. As soon as I can I move this theme onto a 20m circle as too much traver on the straight line can encourage the natural crookedness of the horse.

All just gradually building the horses body and mind to be able to cope with the work.
 
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