To mount a horse from the ground with nobody to help, check the girth, stand at the horse’s left shoulder facing the tail, and take both reins in your left hand at the top of the neck. Then put your left foot in the stirrup, bounce off your right foot, push up like you’re climbing a stair, swing your right leg over without touching the horse, and sit down soft.
Jack here. That’s the whole move in two sentences, and honestly the steps aren’t the hard part. The hard part is doing them without dragging the saddle sideways or landing on the horse’s back like a sack of feed.
So I’ll start with the checks, then each step, then what researchers found a ground mount does to a horse’s back. After that come the tricks for the trail, when there’s no block and nobody around to hold the off stirrup.
Check the Tack Before You Climb
Every guide I trust starts on the ground, not in the stirrup. Horse Illustrated’s riding guide says to do a safety check on both sides of the horse before you get on. The bridle buckles should be fastened with nothing twisted and the reins not crossed. The girth should be buckled right and tight enough, and the stirrups pulled down.
The girth matters most on a ground mount. When all your weight goes into the left stirrup, the girth and the withers on the far side are what keep the saddle from rolling toward you. A girth that’s a hole loose in the barn aisle can turn a saddle under you out in the pasture.
My own habit is to snug it up, walk the horse 10 or 20 steps, and check it again. Plenty of horses hold a little air when you first tighten up (sneaky, but fair enough), and that extra hole shows up a minute later.
Pick your spot, too. You want level ground, the horse standing square, and nothing behind your heels to trip over. If the horse is fresh and dancing around, I’d rather hand-walk it for 5 minutes than try to climb onto a moving target. Stirrups and moving targets don’t mix.
Step by Step From the Ground
Here’s the sequence Horse Illustrated teaches, and it’s pretty much the one most of us learned on a patient old lesson horse (the kind that’s seen it all).
- Stand at the left shoulder, facing the tail. Hold both reins in your left hand at the top of the neck.
- Hold the stirrup out with your right hand and put the ball of your left foot in it.
- Put your right hand on the pommel or the middle of the seat and turn so you’re facing the horse’s side.
- Bounce on your right foot and push off with your left to swing your right leg up and over the horse’s back. Don’t kick the horse on the way.
- Sink gently into the saddle, then find the other stirrup with your right foot.
Two of those are worth a few more words. Facing the tail is about what happens if the horse steps forward while you’re halfway up. The way I understand it, a horse walking off swings you toward the saddle when you face the back end, instead of leaving you hopping behind.
And mind your toe. Point it toward the girth, not into the horse’s ribs. A toe jabbing the side on the way up feels a lot like a cue to move off, and then you’re hopping along on one foot with the reins in a tangle. Not my favorite way to start a ride.
Push With Your Legs, Not Your Arms
This is where most ground mounts go wrong. Horse Illustrated says some people have trouble learning to push off the ground and try to pull themselves up instead. Their fix is to think about stair steps, the motion you’d use walking up stairs. I like that picture a lot. Simple. Your legs do the lifting, and your hands just steady you.
Pulling is what drags the saddle over. Your Horse magazine put it simply: when you put all your weight in one stirrup, you pull the saddle over toward you. Hauling on the saddle with your arms only adds to it.
Then there’s the landing — the part your horse feels most. Horse Illustrated says many new riders like to “plop” into the saddle, and it tells them to pretend there’s an egg under the seat that they mustn’t crack. Funny thing is, I think grown-ups need that egg more than kids do. Kids are light and bouncy. The rest of us come down like a dropped saddle.
What a Ground Mount Does to Your Horse’s Back
Here’s the part that changed how I think about it. In a study published in 2008, researchers at Michigan State University’s equine performance center put an electronic pressure mat under a saddle. Then 10 riders mounted the same horse three times each from the ground and three times from a 35 cm platform, which is about 14 inches.
Once they allowed for each rider’s weight, total force and peak pressure were both significantly higher from the ground. The force usually peaked as the rider’s right leg was swinging upward. And the highest pressure landed on the right side of the withers in 97% of the mounts.
The right side, yep. Turns out the far side takes the beating. Hang your weight in the left stirrup and the saddle wants to slide toward you, so the girth and the far side of the withers take the strain. Your Horse magazine explained it the same way when it wrote up a pressure-pad study by Centaur Biomechanics. That one found a big pressure spot just right of and behind the withers on a ground mount, and the magazine worked it out at about 10 PSI for a 65 kg rider, which is roughly 143 lb.
That doesn’t mean you can never mount from the ground. It means the block is the kinder habit at home, and a ground mount is a skill you keep for the day you need it. Your Horse’s advice was that a mounting block certainly helps, and the higher the block, the better. The magazine also pointed out that horses learn what’s coming. So if yours fidgets every time you lift a foot, that’s worth thinking about.
No Block on the Trail? Find One
Out on the trail, nobody’s packing a mounting block. But the ground usually hands you one if you look. A big flat rock works, so does a stump, a low bank or the high edge of a ditch.
Stand the horse so it’s on the low side and you’re on the high side. Even 6 inches of height makes that stirrup a lot easier to reach, and it means less of your weight hanging off one side of the saddle. Check the footing first, though. A rock that wobbles or a bank that crumbles is worse than flat ground.
Some riders let the left stirrup down a hole or two for the climb, then take it back up once they’re on. I’d rather find a rock, to be honest, because a long stirrup still leaves you hanging off the side. But if it’s the difference between reaching the stirrup and not, do it, and fix it before you ride off.
If the stirrup sits up around your chest, I wrote a whole post of mounting tips for short riders.
Mount From the Right Side, Too
Almost everybody mounts from the left. Your Horse says the habit likely comes from riding’s military roots, when a soldier’s sword on the left hip made mounting from the right hard. Horse Illustrated still teaches the left side, and I’d start a beginner there too.
But nothing about a horse needs it to be the left. On a hillside the uphill side, or the side with the good rock, is sometimes the right one. And a horse that’s never had anybody climb on from the off side may not stand for it the first time you really need it. So practice at home, with a block and a calm horse, before the day you’re stuck on a slope.
Check your stirrup leathers now and then while you’re at it. Since most of us mount from the left (guilty), the left leather is usually the one that stretches longer, and after a while the holes stop matching. A quick look before you tack up catches it. No joke, it takes ten seconds.
Teach the Horse to Stand
None of this works on a horse that walks off the second your foot finds the stirrup. Standing still for mounting is something a horse learns, and it’s worth every minute you put in.
At home, this is how I’d go about it. Ask for a halt beside the block, put a little weight in the stirrup, take it out, and rub the neck. Do that a few times. Once the horse stands through it, swing up and sit quietly for a moment before you ask for anything. If it walks off, step down calmly and set it up again. Short sessions beat one long fight. Every time.
Now, if a horse that always stood quietly starts moving off, swishing its tail or pinning its ears when you get on, think pain before manners. Have the saddle fit checked, and call your vet. Our post on why a horse won’t let you mount goes through the usual reasons.
Ground, Block or Leg Up: Picking the Way On
Short version. At home, use a block. On the trail, look for a rock or a bank first, and use flat ground when there’s nothing else. If somebody’s around, Your Horse says having them hold the other stirrup really helps, because they take some of the force that would otherwise land on the horse’s back. A leg up is another option, and that study found its pressure spike wasn’t as great and was even on both sides.
In a western saddle, the steps are the same, and your right hand goes on the horn instead of the pommel. I covered the details in how to mount a horse western style, if that’s your saddle.
Whatever saddle you ride, the ground mount is a skill worth having in your back pocket. Practice it on a quiet day and keep it light on the horse’s back. Then save it for when there’s no rock in sight… which, on a long trail, is more often than you’d think.
Saddle up and enjoy the ride. Happy trails, y’all.
A Must-Read:
How to Mount a Horse If You're Overweight?
Riding Heavy: The Best Horse Breeds for Carrying 400 Pounds
How Fat is Too Fat to Ride a Horse?
Horse Show Packing Checklist: Everything for You, Your Horse and the Trailer
Why Horses Let Us Ride Them – 13 Reasons You Never Knew!
Why Do Western Riders Use Split Reins?
