Science Of Motion Equine Podcast

Half Pass

"In the cervical and thoracic vertebral column, rotation is always coupled with lateroflexion and vice versa.� (Jean Marie Denoix, 1999).

The rotation associated with lateral bending can be proper or inverted. The difficulty of the half pass is not the crossing of the legs and the lateral movement but rather the horse’s ability to sustain proper rotation associated with lateral bending. This is the difference between educating efficiently the horse’s physique for the performance and tricking the horse into the movement.

In both cases, proper or inverted rotation, the horse will be able to cross the front legs above the knees and fulfill the jugging standards. However, the horse properly coordinated will also be capable to sustain suspension, amplitude and cadence all the way through the half pass. The performance is then beautiful. By contrast, the horse improperly coordinated is not.

The video commences with a horse that you have already seen. You can visualize the difference between a half pass that the horse executed when his body was improperly coordinated and the half pass that the same horse executes once properly educated.

Chazot is a young horse discovering his own body. The first half pass at the walk commences well. Then Chazot loses the proper coordination between lateral bending and transversal rotation. I helped him a little and he figured how to coordinate again his body properly.

The following half passes are a work in progress.

Jean Luc