So I figured it out: http://jsfiddle.net/thomseddon/gLjuH/3/

The trick is to set each css property you are animating to its current value (possibly mid transition) like: $(this).css('prop', $(this).css('prop')); (Probably would want to store all properties in an object in the element with $(this).data(props); and loop through them).

Once you have explicitly set the properties you can run a 0s animation to override the previous animation and effectively halt the element.