Training - Side Pass & Half Pass with David Norbury

This article is from the July 2020 Horse Deals magazine.

Back in the late 70s, or maybe the early 80s, I remember reading an article from an American trainer who had come to Australia to teach his methods to up-and-coming competitors and trainers.

On each day of the clinic, the instructor would give a heading. These headings included guiding, collection, softness and side pass.

The heading that caught my attention was ‘Side Pass’ being the word of the day. It was only a paragraph that said side pass will teach your horse to pick up the correct lead and perform lead changes. There wasn’t much more information than that from what I can remember, however, that small paragraph had a huge impact on how I could improve my horse’s performance.

That statement was what I consider the WOW factor that changed my understanding of how to get a horse to respond to leg pressure.

Side Pass

The people that I have taught over the years would all know that when coming to a lesson, we teach the side pass which is standing still and walking sideways. Once the side pass is established we then move on to the half pass that entails walking forward, jogging or loping and going sideways.

Half Pass

To perform a proper half pass the ideal position of the horse going to the left, for instance, is for him to be looking either straight forward or slightly to the left having his hip over further to the left than his shoulder.

If we were half passing in a typical arena, I would expect by the time we got to the left-hand wall, the hip should hit the wall before the shoulder.

Just to make it a little clearer on how far the hip should be over, you need to imagine the right hind leg being in line with the left front leg, that’s what required when travelling to the left.

I’m often asked how far a horse should be reaching in their half pass and I try explaining by saying if a horse steps forward at the lope of canter by say one metre, for instance, we need him to half pass one metre as well.

It goes without saying that your horse needs to be flexible through turning his head left and right and also bringing his head to the centre of his chest. When we are talking about turning the head left and right, we need the chin to come to the point of the left shoulder and the right shoulder to get the maximum out of flexion. In saying this, some horses are very thick through the throat and are unable to bring their chin to the point of their shoulder because it restricts their breathing, so you need to assess your horse’s conformation and acknowledge how far they can actually flex through that neck area.

It Won’t Happen Overnight

You know there are certainly times when everything is not going to fall into place, when for instance, trying to pick up the correct lead. I’ve spoken about the half pass and how ideally we would like the horse to be looking to the left and hip over to the left, to pick up the left lead. Well, in the early stages of horse training everything is not going to fall into place like that. You might find that you can half pass with the hip over correctly, but he will not look in the direction that he needs to look in for that exercise.

Picking Up The Correct Lead

For a horse to pick up the left lead the hip needs to be over further than the shoulder. I couldn’t care if his head was upside down looking to the right, so long as that hip is over to the left because it will be the right hind leg which is the push-off leg,followed by the diagonal stride which is the left hind leg and right front leg, followed by the fourth leg which is the left front leg that puts him onto the correct lead and this is what gives us a three-beat lope or canter.

As you progress with your horse’s flexion through his neck and head, you will eventually be able to get him in that perfect position, so don’t stress if you can’t get the neck and head correct to start with. As long as the hip is over you’ll be fine.

After you have loped off on the left lead, you need to continue half passing to the left to enhance the exercise; to let him know that every time he picks up the left lead he is to continue moving off to the left. You will find after a while of half passing to the left after loping off, he will start doing it without you even asking. When this happens he is then telling you through his body language you no longer need to be half passing to the left, unless of course, he starts to pick up the wrong lead which will then mean you will need to go back to half passing to the left.

Using Half Pass For Flying Changes

The other advantage of performing the half pass exercise, especially at the lope or canter, depending on what discipline you are doing, enables you to perform flying lead changes on your horse.

To perform a flying lead change correctly we need to be able to half pass to the left and the right.

Once your horse is moving off your leg sufficiently you need to travel down the arena, I generally ride across the diagonal of my arena as it gives me a little more room.

To create the change, when travelling on the left lead across the arena we need to half pass to the right. This is where it’s important for the hip to come over first so that we get that back end moving first, to change in unison with the front end. As your horse performs this exercise the mechanics of his body will make him change leads.

Spins & Pirouettes

The other advantage of half passing is that you will also be able to perform the spin that is required in the reining event and also the pirouette for dressage.

To perform the spin for the reining event simply means doing the half pass with one leg being stationary. If we were to spin to the left we would have the right hind leg pushing the body forward with the right front leg crossing over the left front leg and the left hind leg remaining stationary.

I am not an expert in dressage, however, when watching riders performing the pirouette, I would guess the same leg movements are required to perform this manoeuvre as with the spin for the reining horses.

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