Mounting a Horse: The 7-Step Method for Beginners

In 97% of mounts performed from the ground, the pressure on the horse's back concentrates on one single side of the withers. That figure comes from a study measured with a pressure mat under the saddle, and it appears nowhere in the usual beginner guides. Yet it is exactly what explains why instructors insist so much on the mounting block. Mounting a horse looks like a simple movement, but it plays out over roughly ten seconds in which plenty can go wrong: a loose girth, a heel dug into the flank, a leg that simply drops. This guide gives you the exact method, what is normal the first time, what is not, and what to sort out before your first lesson.

Riding a horse: what the expression actually covers

Horse riding names the activity in general, while riding a horse means sitting on that particular animal. Both wordings are correct, they simply do not say the same thing.

The distinction runs like this:

• To go riding: the activity, with no object. "I have been riding for two years" means "I have been doing equestrian sport for two years".
• To ride a horse: the action applied to an identified animal. "I rode a difficult horse" points to one particular mount.
• To mount: the movement on its own, from the ground to the seated position. That is the core subject of this page.
• To get on a horse: common in speech, but it suggests climbing aboard rather than practising the sport.

In writing you will also meet to bestride, to be on horseback and to take to the saddle. The first carries a literary flavour, the second simply describes being up rather than on foot, the third points to the moment you set off. In everyday yard language people just say ride, and the group session on the school horses is called a lesson.

The 5 checks to make before your foot goes in the stirrup

Five checks separate a clean mount from a silly accident, and all five together take under a minute. None of them is optional, even on a school horse tacked up by someone else.

• Check the girth. This is the most important check and the one most often skipped. A horse blows its belly out while being saddled, then lets go. A girth done up ten minutes earlier has gone slack. Slide two flat fingers between the girth and the ribs: if four go in, take it up a hole. A saddle slipping round during the mount is the number one cause of falls at the block.
• Adjust your stirrup leathers before you get on. The arm rule gives a reliable starting length: put your knuckles against the stirrup bar, run your arm down the leather, and the iron should reach your armpit. You will fine-tune once seated, but mounting with leathers twice too long makes the movement close to impossible.
• Take up the reins and bring them onto the neck. They should be up towards the head, adjusted, ready to be picked up. Reins trailing on the ground are a trap: the horse can tread on them and hurt his mouth, or panic.
• Fasten your hat strap before you go near the horse. It does up at the stable door, not once your foot is in the stirrup. A hat sitting on your head unfastened protects nothing.
• Check the ground under your feet. Flat, non-slip, clear. No slope, no loose gravel, no frozen puddle. The horse needs four steady feet, and so do you.

On the preparation that comes before these checks, our guide to grooming kit sets out what you want to hand before you even fetch the saddle. Everyday saddlery and care items are gathered in the riding accessories collection.

Getting into the saddle: the 7-step method

Mounting breaks down into seven linked movements, and the one rule that allows no exception is that you push yourself up off the right leg, never by pulling on the reins. Here is the full sequence.

1. Stand at the horse's left shoulder, facing the rear. Your left shoulder is level with his left shoulder, your eyes towards the quarters. That orientation matters: if the horse walks on, it turns you into him rather than pulling you off balance.
2. Take both reins in your left hand, shortened but without tension. A light contact with the mouth is enough to tell the horse to stand. A tight rein, on the other hand, asks him to step back.
3. Put your left hand on the withers, reins included, or on the pommel if you are short of height. The withers are the high point at the base of the neck: a stable place to bear down on.
4. Put your left foot in the stirrup, toe pointing towards the horse's front, never square across. Your heel must not touch the flank at any point: that is the signal that sends a sensitive horse forward.
5. Take a support with your right hand on the cantle, the raised back of the saddle, or on the far flap. Plenty of riders grab the pommel with both hands: that drags the saddle sideways and makes matters worse.
6. Push up off the right leg still on the ground, in one spring rather than by hauling. You rise vertically, your body close to the horse's side. Then swing the right leg high over the quarters, without brushing them.
7. Sit down gently, letting your hands carry the weight as your seat lowers. The weight is placed, it does not drop. Then find the right stirrup without looking down, feeling for the iron with your toe.

What is perfectly normal the first time: running out of strength at step six, needing two attempts, needing a block even if you are fit. Mounting from the ground calls for a degree of hip extension few people use in daily life. It is not a fitness failing, it is a range of movement you build.

What is not normal: a horse that steps back the moment you take the stirrup, or that swings away every single time. In that case, stop and call the instructor. The problem never comes from you alone.

Block, stirrup or bareback: what each method costs the horse's back

In 2008, a study published in The Veterinary Journal measured, with a pressure mat under the saddle, what mounting really does to a horse's back, and the gap between the ground and a block is clear. Ten riders mounted three times from the ground and three times from a 35-centimetre platform, in random order.

Once the results were normalised to rider mass: total force and peak pressure are significantly higher when the rider goes up from the ground. The maximum comes at the exact moment the right leg passes over the quarters, in other words at step six of the method above. And in 97% of the mounts observed, pressure concentrated on the right side of the withers, the side opposite the rider.

It is that asymmetry that makes the study interesting. It does not say never mount from the ground: it says a horse ridden several times a day, always from the same side, always from the ground, takes a repeated one-sided load on a narrow area. So the mounting block is not about rider comfort, it is about spreading a load.

A word on riding bareback, since it is one of the subjects that comes up most often: no saddle does not mean no load. A saddle spreads the rider's weight either side of the spine thanks to its tree. Without one, that weight applies directly, over a wider area but without the diffusion. It is a balance exercise, not a kinder practice by nature.

Why we mount from the left, and whether we still should

We mount from the left because of a sword nobody has worn for five centuries. In the Middle Ages, the knight carried his blade on his left side so he could draw it with his right hand. Mounting from the right would have swung the weapon, even sheathed, over the horse's quarters, with the risk of injuring him. A mount that was even slightly impaired became a liability in battle.

The habit was taught strictly in the military academies, then handed on to the civilian riding schools, and it settled in everywhere. The vocabulary still carries the trace: the left is called the near side and the right the off side.

Today, no technical reason requires it. And the study mentioned above even gives an argument for moving away from it: since pressure concentrates on the right side of the withers in 97% of mounts made from the left, alternating sides mechanically spreads that load.

Two precautions before you try:

• The horse has to be brought to it gradually. A school horse never mounted from the right may swing away, turn his head or step back. That is not stubbornness, it is surprise.
• Do it under supervision the first time. Your own reference points change too: the hands swap over, the support is no longer the same, and the balance has to be found again.

The correct position once you are sitting in the saddle

Once seated, correct position comes down to a single reference line: shoulder, hip and heel vertically aligned seen from the side. Everything else follows from that.

Area by area:

• The seat. You are in contact through both seat bones and the pubis, not tipped back onto the tailbone nor forward onto the crotch. The back is straight without being rigid, the shoulders relaxed and down.
• The legs. Hanging down the horse's side, calf in contact without pressure. The heel is lower than the toe, which steadies the leg and anchors you in the saddle. The foot rests on the iron at the base of the toes, not jammed home to the heel.
• The hands. Above the withers, the width of the bit apart, thumbs uppermost. The elbows stay close to the body. A soft line should run from your elbow to the horse's mouth through the rein.
• The eyes. Looking well ahead, between the horse's ears and beyond. Never look down at the neck: the head weighs several kilos, and dropping it tips your whole upper body forward, unbalancing the horse as much as yourself.

This position is not decorative. It places your weight in the middle of the saddle, where the horse's back carries it best, and it leaves you free to react. A rider permanently out of balance grabs the reins, and a rider who grabs the reins pulls on a mouth. For what comes next, once that base is there, our guide to cantering picks up where this one stops.

Dismounting without hurting yourself

When you dismount, both feet come out of the stirrups before anything else moves at all. It is the most important safety rule in the whole sequence, and it is the one most guides forget to mention.

The reason is simple: a foot left trapped in the stirrup while the body heads for the ground is the serious-accident scenario. The rider ends up hanging head down against the side of a horse that may set off. No other mounting error carries that potential.

The correct sequence:

1. Halt the horse completely and make sure he is standing still, not merely slowing down.
2. Take both reins in your left hand, with the same light contact as when mounting.
3. Take your right foot out of the stirrup, then your left. Both, without exception, before the body moves at all.
4. Put your right hand on the pommel, the left stays on the neck with the reins.
5. Lean your upper body forward and swing the right leg over the quarters, high, without brushing them.
6. Let yourself slide down the horse's side to the ground, keeping contact with the saddle.
7. Absorb the landing with your knees, legs slightly bent as you touch down. A horse stands between 1.50 and 1.70 metres at the withers in the usual sizes: the drop is not nothing for the joints.

Never dismount keeping your left foot in the stirrup to "steady" the way down. That version looks safer, and it is exactly the opposite.

The 7 beginner mistakes that make a horse react

Seven mistakes come up again and again with riders starting out, and every one of them has a direct, immediate consequence for the horse. Knowing them in advance saves learning them through an incident.

• Pulling on the reins to haul yourself up. The pull travels through the bit and lands in the horse's mouth. Result: he steps back, throws his head up, or both. The mount happens on your legs and your supports, never on the mouth.
• Digging the heel or the toe into the flank. As the foot slides into the stirrup, a toe turned towards the horse presses on the ribs. To him, that is a request to move forward. He moves, and you are halfway up.
• Dropping into the saddle. At step seven the weight has to be placed. A 70-kilo rider who sits down all at once lands a sharp load on an area the spine runs through. Repeated, that is a horse's back that stiffens.
• Mounting without re-checking the girth. Mentioned above already, but it is the single most frequent mistake in absolute terms. The saddle turns, and the rider ends up on the floor with the saddle under the horse's belly.
• Approaching from behind without warning. The horse has a blind spot directly behind him. A hand laid on with no notice triggers a flight reflex or a defensive kick. You approach at the shoulder, you speak, you keep a hand in contact.
• Looking at your feet once you are up. To find the right stirrup, to check your position. A dropped head tips you forward and shortens the seat. The stirrup is found with the foot, not with the eye.
• Mounting a horse that has not settled. If he is moving, he is not ready. Put him back, wait for a clear halt, start again. Mounting a moving horse leaves you off balance at the worst possible moment.

Licence, hat and first lesson: what to sort out before you go

To ride at a club affiliated to the French equestrian federation, the licence is not administrative decoration: it is what underpins your insurance cover, from the moment you start preparing the horse until the end of the session. Without a valid licence you get access neither to supervised lessons nor to the Galop examinations.

For the 2026 season, the rider licence costs 29 euros for juniors and 40 euros for adults. That rate was raised on 1 September 2025, after more than thirty years unchanged. In other words, it is the first increase an entire generation of riders will have seen.

On head protection, the European standard in force for new hats is EN 1384:2023, issued at the end of 2023. It tightens the old transitional VG1 01.040 2014-12 standard appreciably:

• Lateral rigidity raised from 630 to 800 newtons.
• Penetration resistance energy raised from 14.7 to 18.4 joules.
• Chin strap retention test raised from 175 to 240 millimetres.

VG1 certified hats are still allowed in competition across the European Union, but they can no longer be manufactured to that standard. If you buy new, check for the EN 1384:2023 marking on the inner label. And remember that a hat which has taken a knock gets replaced, even if it looks intact.

As for the rest, here is what you genuinely need for a first lesson and what can wait.

Most clubs lend a hat for the first few sessions, which lets you try before investing. Everyday clothing and equipment are gathered in the riding and horse clothing collections, and the small day-to-day items for the stable in the horse accessories collection.

FAQ: riding a horse

Here are the short answers to the questions that come up most among riders starting out.

What is the activity of riding a horse called? It is called equestrianism, or simply riding. The term covers all the techniques and disciplines practised on horseback. The precise movement that takes you from the ground to the saddle is called mounting, and the verb used in the yard is simply "to ride".

What is a synonym for riding a horse? The usual synonyms are to bestride and to be on horseback. The first has a literary flavour, the second simply describes being up rather than on foot. In speech, people most often say "to go riding" or just "to ride".

Can you ride without a licence? At a club affiliated to the French equestrian federation, the licence underpins insurance cover and access to supervised lessons. Some yards offer taster sessions or one-off hacks under a dedicated policy, but as soon as you join a course of lessons, the licence becomes the rule.

At what age can you start riding? Clubs generally take children from three or four in baby pony groups, then in the pony club. For adults there is no age limit at all. A sizeable share of club beginners are past thirty, and many discover riding while taking their own child along.

How long does it take to learn to ride? Allow around ten sessions to be independent at walk and rising trot on a calm school horse. Galop 1, the first official level, is often reached within a season at one lesson a week. Mounting itself becomes automatic in three or four sessions.

Should you be afraid of riding the first time? Apprehension is normal and even useful: it keeps you alert. What settles it fastest is knowing the sequence in advance, which is exactly what this guide gives you, and choosing a yard that puts you on a school horse used to beginners.