Daily practice of lower-level dressage movements, such as the circle, half-turn, halt, and shoulder-in, promote suppleness in the horse and obedience to the rider's commands. The lower-level movements are essential to the training of all hunters, equitation horses, and jumpers.
Since a greater degree of precision is required in advanced equitation classes and jumper classes, the rider must prepare for these by incorporating upper-level dressage movements into his daily routine. Some of the movements, such as the turn on the haunches, flying change of lead, and counter-canter, are included in AHSA "Tests 1-19," the official tests used in hunter seat equitation classes. Other upper-level movements, such as the travers (haunches-in), renvers (haunches-out), half-pass (two-track), and pirouette (the turn on the haunches at the canter), are only used for schooling advanced equitation horses and jumpers, since the performance of these tests is not required in the show ring.
Some basic criteria for distinguishing lower-level movements from upper-level movements are as follows:
Lower-level movements require a moderate degree of rider manipulation of the horse's horizontal energy into vertical energy, while upper-level movements demand a much greater degree of vertical thrust of the horse's momentum.
Lower-level movements that require the horse to move sideways while bent to the left or right (such as the leg-yield, shoulder-in, and basic turn on the forehand) are based on the principle of the horse moving away from the direction in which it is bent; while the upper-level movements performed with the horse in a bent position (such as the haunches-in, haunches-out, advanced turn on the forehand, turn on the haunches, half-pass, and modified pirouette) require the horse to move toward the direction in which it is bent.
(Note: The counter canter and flying change are two tests that do not meet both of the criteria stated above, but are considered upper-level tests because of their degree of difficulty.)