FALCON CREEK FARM NEWSLETTER
(Jan/Feb/Mar 2005)
MOUNTING PROBLEMS
Getting on
your horse should be a fairly easy thing to do, right? But sometimes, the horse just doesn’t want to
co-operate with and stand still while you climb on. He may dance around in a circle, walk off
before you get on or he may walk off as you are getting on, which could result
in falling or getting a foot hung up in the stirrup. Some horses are wise to mounting blocks and
will move off after you have carefully positioned them beside the block so that
it makes getting on them practically impossible. Some horses may act nervous and jittery as
you are getting on and will want to take off before you even have your feet in
the stirrups. I will offer some tips
here to make getting on your horse hopefully, a little easier.
For starters,
make sure you are getting on your horse correctly. When you go to get on a horse, one of things
the horse has to do is counter-balance itself against your weight. If you are mounting on the left side, the
horse has to stiffen and stabilize his left side so that as you climb on, he
doesn’t fall over. Some horses are
better at doing this than others. This
is something horses have to learn how to do, if he doesn’t already know to do
it. Young or untrained horses are
particularly vulnerable to not being able to keep their balance as you get
on. This may be one of the reasons your
horse walks around when you try and get on – he’s afraid of losing his balance
and thus doesn’t want you to cause that for him. Once they learn how to counter-balance against
you, they usually will do just fine with it.
There are two things you can do to help your horse learn this. First of all, when you do mount up, be
careful to PUSH yourself up off the ground with your leg. By pushing yourself up into the saddle, you avoid
PULLING (which is usually with your arms or hands) yourself up; which puts much
allot of pressure on the horses back and withers and also pulls them over to
the side more, thus causing more of an imbalance. A second suggestion is to stabilize the horse
before you get on. To do this, take a
hold of the saddle horn (Western) or pommel (English) and slowly and gently
rock the horse from side to side, causing him to transfer his weight from one
front leg to the other. You’ll notice
that as you do this, your horse will try and stop you by bracing and stiffening
against your rocking (remember, horses are INTO pressure animals). This will eventually become his cue that you
are about to get on and he needs to brace and get ready for it.
If your horse
seems nervous or frightened before or as you get on, he is telling you that he
needs desensitization work and that he isn’t ready for you to get on him. He may some fear issues with the saddle, or
maybe he isn’t quite comfortable with the arena or area that he is in; it could
be a number of things. Go back and do
some ground work with him that addresses whatever it is that is making him
uncomfortable with you getting on.
If your horse
walks off as you are getting on, what he is telling you is that he knows you
always get going when you get on. To
break him of that, you’ll need to establish a totally new habit. To do this, once you get on, ask him to stand
and do nothing – just stand for about 5-10 minutes. Do this every single time you get on and
eventually he will start to figure out that when you get on him, he doesn’t get
to go anywhere. He will then become less
likely to walk off. Once you are on, do
some head bending exercises. Bend his head left to right, right to
left. This will help relax his jaw, poll
and neck and get him thinking about what he’s supposed to be doing (which is
listening to you!) instead of just walking off.
If your horse
is wise to mounting blocks and moves away from them once you have positioned
him, then immediately put him to work by doing some lunging, lunging in
half-circles with frequent changes of direction, take him over some
cavallettis, or barrels – anything! – just get his
feet moving and make him hustle. When he
has done 5-10 minutes of good hustling work, take him back over to the mounting
block and let him stand and rest. You
want him to associate the block with resting, so that the block starts to look
like a pretty good place to be. You may
have to do this repeatedly for several days before he stands, but once he
figures it out, he’ll start keeping his feet still around the mounting
block. Once he does stand still, then
practice getting on him, but then immediately get off. This will reward him for standing. Don’t just take off and start galloping
around. Increase the amount of time you
sit on him before getting off as he improves.
This will reward his behavior for standing still. Do some head bending exercises while you are
sitting there.
Eventually, you can work up to getting on and walking off and resuming
your normal riding. If he starts moving
away from the mounting block, go back and put his feet to work again. Chances are, he will remember what that got
him the last time he tried moving off and he won’t be so inclined to move
again.
Happy Riding!!!
Comments and feedback are always welcome!
Leslie Laing @
Falcon Creek Farm
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