driving aids. Since our willing partner is stretching into the outside rein and positioned to the inside the energy coming from the pushing inside hind leg arrives at the outside rein anyway. The logic for the third use of the outside rein, tempo control, is very similar. Again we do not want to interfere with the inside hind leg and do want to slow the energy so we use the outside rein and apply less driving aids to reduce the tempo.
     The tasks of the inside rein are to help the seat and leg to create the bend and position of the horse as well as to help turn it.
     By now it is clear that we rarely use an aid alone. It is usually many or sometimes all of the aids that create the message we send to the horse. Ideally the rider tells the horse to pay attention to her (half-halt) before she applies the actual demand. This is a very important aspect of good communication since effective preparation allows the horse to execute the demand well. As I am sitting here trying to find a way to best explain how this combining of aids works, I am reminded of “Legos,” the toy building blocks. These blocks can be put together in many ways and thus produce many different objects. You can shape a house, a bridge, a train, or any other type of whatever you can imagine. The aids are such building blocks that you use to form sentences. You have eight pressure points: two legs at two positions each, two seat bones, and two reins. Since you can use your calves only at one spot at a time, there are at any time six points available to you to combine as needed to produce the exact message you want to send to the horse. The advantage of the aids over Legos is that once a message has been sent the blocks (aids) are all still there to be reused without first having to dismantle a prior work. I believe you can imagine the incredible number of messages you can send to your horse just by changing the combinations of the aids. Add to that the many ways in which you can vary the messages by moving the emphasis from one aid to another. This just about infinite number of combinations not only allows us to produce many messages, but even more importantly it enables us to be very precise in our messages to the horse.
     This is another good time to stop and think and ride.
     The task is to bring your horse to a halt at X. That is easy on your willing partner, but I would like for you to imagine that he just has a bad day and would better be described as a willing antagonist. Keeping in mind that you are to do as little as possible, how would you stop such a horse? Please take your time to visualize yourself on the centerline sitting on a horse, having to halt at X, and you realize that your horse has tuned you out. What would you do to halt this horse and hopefully still receive a good score?
     Close your eyes, feelalize, analyze what you feel, form a correction, send it, continue to feelalize, to analyze, correct your message, send it, feelalize, etc., etc., halt! Open your eyes.
     My experience with horses tells me that every answer to a question should start with, “That depends,” because rarely are two situations exactly the same and therefore the corrections should not be alike. In the earlier stated situation of a not so willing horse on the centerline having to come to a halt at X, I would quickly assess the degree of disobedience, and if it is slight, I then would attempt to correct it with light half-halts. If there is strong tension, but rhythm and balance are in order, my half-halts would be stronger and, if necessary, more frequent in order to still manage