Sidepassing question

I think the owners of my new horse said she knows how to side pass. What is the cue for it? Sorry if it sounds dumb to ask but its something I never taught my horses

Side Pass to the right: left reign contact to the neck, left leg pressure, and the opposite for Side Pass to the left.

Legs/body:
Inside leg just behind girth pushing haunches in direction you want to move

Outside leg at the girth, steady if you want no fwd motion, active if you want a step fwd between side steps.

Weight shifted to inside seatbone.

Reins:
Inside rein bending head at the poll till you can see the inside eyeball.

Outside rein steady, supporting neck and shoulder from falling out.

Also, there is a difference between a side pass and a leg yield. In a side pass the horse's head is slightly bent in the direction of travel where in the leg yield, the head is slightly bent opposite the direction of travel. As MILDOT indicated, just so you can see the close edge of the eye.

Ie, leg yield to the left, the head is bent right..sidepass to the left, the head is bent to the left.

The idea in a side pass and leg yield is that the front and hind legs will cross over each other in the forward travel. If you don't have that cross over, you don't have a correct leg yield or sidepass.

I always found it helpful to understand WHY cues were the way they were.

With side passing and leg yields, you are applying pressure on one side, and the horse goes in the other direction - moving away from the pressure. So, if you want movement towards the right, you apply pressure from the left, and vice versa.

Ahhhh....so side pass = half pass? Didn't know.

I've always thought someone needed to make a list of riding terms and their definitions, along with an "also called..." section.

I didn't know this either!

I've had trainers use the terms sidepass and half-pass interchangeably but no matter which they used it was the same way..head bent in the direction of travel. Admittedly these aren't specific dressage trainers just trainers doing dressage type flatwork on horses that were most definitely not dressage capable :).

After looking it up, the half-pass is where the head is bent in the direction of travel as the horse moves both sideways and forward. In the sidepass, the head is straight and the horse isn't necessarily moving forward..in other words, a true "side to side". In the leg yield, the head is bent in the opposite direction of travel as the horse is moving sideways and forward.

Here is the site I used just now to find the differences:

Leg Yield, Half Pass & Side Pass

This half pass = side pass thing made me go look in one of my reference books (101 Dressage Exercises for Horse and Rider)

In it, half pass and side pass are not the same. The side pass is shown as being 100% lateral movement. Same idea of a horse crossing his legs outside to inside, but moving only sideways and with the body relatively straight.

IMO that makes the most sense as having two different names for the same movement helps no one. But then dressage has a codified language and western riding has a "freer" vocabulary.