Mounting your horse sets the tone for your ride. Teach your horse to wait. Train him to accommodate all mounting forms and tolerate all styles, from either side…graceful and less so. Mounting from the ground, from a block, leg up …or vault on!
Mounting manners set the tone for your ride with your horse. Starting on a good note is the best predictor for a harmonious ride.
The horse show judge won’t give you and your horse any extra marks for meticulous mounting manners. But the way I see it, careful training in one area of horsemanship spills over into other areas of riding…
Mounting manners don’t affect the score on the horse show judge’s card or change a barrel run time, so naturally many riders don’t devote horse training time to standing still…until it starts to become a bigger problem…
Memories of my early days at the local riding school include eager young equestrians falling off. Yet we riders were advancing faster than our understanding Anxiety rises and riders fall when they try to skip steps. And riders, when anxious, don’t really enjoy the process.
Describing research into rider falls, an article headline read: The risk factors surrounding many falls may be preventable. Makes good sense to me. And it lines up with what I’ve noted as a judge and riding coach over the years. While wearing protective gear – helmets and safety vests – do prevent the severity of