(“I’ve only got 30 seconds!”)

Hey, guys, time for a pop quiz. Here’s a hypothetical: you’re the clinician and you’ve been tasked with viewing a rider you’ve never met and in 30 seconds of observation, having to come up with a meaningful analysis of her abilities and shortcomings. She’s already warmed up, and you can ask for any movements or figures, but you only get to watch 30 seconds of riding. What do you ask to see? I’ll hang up and take your answer off the air.

OK, time’s up! What I would ask for is one turn on the forehand and one rein- back. Remember, I’ve only got 30 seconds, but here’s what I can find out:

How a rider executes a turn on the forehand reveals 1) what she knows about staying in balance on her horse—not tending to lean sideways or collapse a hip, 2) how she coordinates her pushing and receiving aids—whether the motivating and modifying aids speak back and forth to each other or whether the aids are put on in “recipe” fashion, 3) whether she is an over-user of the inside rein or an under-user of the outside leg—if those things show up here, they’ll undoubtedly be present in many other circumstances, and 4) whether she has an awareness of the need to keep the horse “thinking forward” at all times. You won’t be going out on a limb to extrapolate from what you see in a turn on the forehand. The rein-back is almost a bigger give-away. As soon as you see those forearms tense up and the elbows begin to pull back, you can draw a major conclusion about what the rider knows about real half halts. To ride a horse patiently in reverse with gentle pushing aids and sensitive, independent, momentarily non-allowing hands—each aid ebbing and flowing in a manner that helps the horse understand what the rider wants—is indicative of a fairly sophisticated understanding of how the aids work.

If a rider can demonstrate thoughtful, back-to-front riding through these two movements, you can almost guarantee she’ll have already developed a good seat and the instincts and habits that separate her from her peers.