Horse & Rider

The Seven Core Riding Skills

Alvará sets out the rider's development through seven Core Riding Skills:

Position · Independence · Balance · Seat · Leg · Hand · Feel

They are listed in the order they depend on one another. Each skill establishes something the next one needs, with Feel drawing on all six that come before it.

I · Position

The rider's basic alignment on the horse.

Ear, shoulder, hip and heel on one vertical line; the pelvis level; the leg long. That alignment gives the later skills a stable starting point.

Read next Horse riding position, in full

II · Independence

Each part of the rider moving while the rest stays still.

A leg that closes without the hand tightening. A hand that follows without the seat shifting. A shoulder that turns without the pelvis following it.

Independence is what makes a single clear question possible. Without it, every aid arrives with two or three others attached, and the horse has to work out which one was meant.

III · Balance

The rider maintaining their own balance as the horse moves.

The horse moves forwards, sideways and vertically, and the rider has to maintain their own centre of gravity through those changes. That balance allows the seat to follow and influence the movement without using the rein for support.

IV · Seat

Position, Independence and Balance working together through the pelvis.

The seat is Position, Independence and Balance ridden as one thing. Your pelvis rests on the horse's back and moves with it, and weight and intention travel through that contact.

It comes fourth because it depends on the first three. A seat cannot communicate from a body that is misaligned, that grips, or that is being thrown about.

V · Leg

The leg asks for and directs the horse's energy.

The leg asks the horse forward, positions the quarters, and contains energy when the work needs it contained.

The aim is a light effective aid that the horse answers without needing it to be repeated every stride.

VI · Hand

The rein aid carried through the rider's hand.

In Working Equitation one hand is committed to the obstacles, and the senior standard asks for that throughout. The rein steadies, gives direction and confirms.

The order of the aids follows from that: the seat asks, the leg supports, the hand confirms.

Read next One hand

VII · Feel

The rider reading the horse through its balance and movement.

Feel is reading what the horse is telling you through its balance and movement, whether it is settled or tense, carrying itself or running on, with you or beginning to drift.

It comes last because the rider needs the earlier six skills to receive that information without their own movement obscuring it. If the rider is still correcting their own balance, it becomes harder to distinguish the horse's changes from their own.

VIII · The Seven Across the Four Trials

The same seven skills appear differently depending on what the trial is asking.

Working Dressage reads Position most directly, with nothing in the way and a collective mark set aside for the rider.

Ease of Handling tests Independence hardest, because one hand is working the obstacle while the other rides the horse.

Speed tests Balance, because everything gets faster and there is no time to reorganise.

Cattle tests Feel, because the cow changes the question and you have to read the horse and the animal at once.

IX · What Changes as the Levels Rise

The same seven skills remain relevant as the levels rise, but they are required under increasingly difficult work.

At the lower categories the rider uses two hands. As the training and level advance, more of the work is carried through the seat and leg until the reins can be carried in one hand.

X · Why These Seven Skills

Position. Independence. Balance. Seat. Leg. Hand. Feel.

The Library explains what each one does. Inside the Member study, Article 8 goes back another step and asks why these became the seven skills in the first place.

A College plate in two columns. The left column lists the seven Core Riding Skills in their canonical order: Position, Independence, Balance, Seat, Leg, Hand, Feel. The right column gives what the working day asked for in each case: the seat that could be held from dawn to dark; the pole carried in one hand for hours; ground that rose and fell without warning; Position, Independence and Balance ridden as one; the horse that answered the smallest ask; the work that repeatedly claimed one hand; the cow that turns when its own intention forms. The seven resolve below into one rider. The closing line reads: the College names them, and the work required the capacities long before it gave them names. BRANCH ONE · THE CORE RIDING SKILLS THE SKILL WHAT THE WORKING DAY ASKED POSITION the seat that could be held from dawn to dark INDEPENDENCE the pole carried in one hand for hours BALANCE ground that rose and fell without warning SEAT Position, Independence and Balance, ridden as one LEG the horse that answered the smallest ask HAND the work that repeatedly claimed one hand FEEL the cow that turns when its own intention forms ONE RIDER The College names them; the work required the capacities long before it gave them names. FIG. · SEVEN SKILLS, SEVEN WORKING DEMANDS

The answer sits in the working day.

Position came from a seat a rider could carry for hours. Independence grew from working with a pole occupying one hand. Balance came from riding over ground that continually changed underneath horse and rider.

Leg developed around a horse expected to answer softly enough to keep working all day. Hand reflects a form of riding in which the work repeatedly claimed one hand. And Feel came from cattle, where the rider had to read what was happening and respond at the right moment.

The fourth skill, Seat, gathers Position, Independence and Balance into the place from which the rider can organise the rest.

For College Members, that changes the seven skills from a list of riding abilities into something with a reason behind it. Each one answers a demand the working rider actually faced.

Article 8 describes the finished rider as seven abilities gathered into one body. The Member study begins by separating those abilities clearly enough to understand them, then follows how they come back together in the riding.

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