13 Year Old DWB Gelding...

This was a stunning Dutch Warmblood gelding. He and his rider are one score away from their gold medal. She said at the beginning that the horse does one's, but she doesn't.

The first thing Jane said was to make sure to keep the seat bone arrows pointing forward (ie lean back)

A half pass with no bend is 3rd level.

To improve the quality of bend at the half pass trot down centerline, LY with bend 4 steps, half pass with same bend 2 steps; repeat

Don't begin to half pass if there is no bend, and begin the leg yield *before* the horse flattens its barrel against your leg in the half pass

Leg yield from centerline curved like a C, suppleing as you leg yield

Pick up the trot, 10 meter circle, supple on circle, then leg yield to the wall from the centerline while maintaining the bend

If you pick an exercise to improve a movement, do the exercise to a few times and then try the movement to see if it actually improved

To get engagement use half-steps

****Half Steps Exercise****
Collect the walk, he should feel like 211 degrees boiling over; think jig with the legs forward; then slide them back and let him jig for 3 steps

When schooling Half Steps with a horse that likes to cheat by slowing down then work on raising the tempo

Jane and Sue Blinks never school Shoulder In down the long side, they always throw in an exercise like piaffe in the middle to get the horse to always be thinking "up" and loading the hind end (stay in Shoulder In though)

Covering less ground and going the same tempo or faster means he's lowering the croup and collecting

To improve the canter half pass, add 3 collecting steps (on straight line) then half pass again--this encourages snappy hind legs

You shouldn't half pass across the diagonal alone, so that the horse gets used to those collecting steps and expects them (this is how you go from a Prix St. Georges horse to a Grand Prix horse)

If the horse isn't doing enough strides in the pirouette make it do extra steps

If the horse wants its head too high then put him deeper so that his neck is lower for pirouettes (note--deeper, not rolkur)

The lower they are the slower they should go, otherwise they're just somersaulting around

Teach the horse on 20 meter circle what quick taps on the outside mean, before using it for collection in the middle of the half pass