I’ve seen this one! I do see that his knee is pressed and he’s pretty far over the horse with his thigh. AND he’s kind of tip toe even in this still on the stirrup to gain an extra few inches.
I don’t put my hand on the cantle, but I haven’t really used my right hand to do anything particularly useful - I’ve just used it for balance on the pommel. I used to put it on the opposite leather to sort of help weight the saddle to keep the horse from taking a balance step (and thus, deciding to continue to move once the feet were going) but I couldn’t seem to get it out of the way.
It’s also possible that I’m not close enough to the horse. It was never necessary the old way to be super close - but to get my thigh on like that and use my weight like that it is.
I always separated what I did to hang off a complete green bean and mounting later…but maybe I need to do it more like the complete green bean method!
Just fyi, this was the first sign that I needed a hip replacement, the inability to throw my leg over the saddle while mounting. Dismounting was worse.
On the up side, I was riding again 6 weeks post op and better than ever.
I’m in this potential cycle. My left hip has developed some impingement again, and I’m sure I’m weak from the surgery and recovery. I have some arthritis and deterioration but I think mostly everything is weak and tight from the recovery, even though I did all the recommended PT, and I’m doing pilates.
It may just be the defective hips, but I also have a theory that I’m doing it “wrong” too.
Sitting on my sofa, attempting visualization but… Don’t you grab some mane with your left hand? Horse doesn’t mind and it doesn’t ever move like the saddle might.
Being unable to dismount without flinging myself up the horses neck and giving out a loud “oofff” as I swing my leg over the cantle is the reason I always try hard not to fall off!
So - maybe I can describe my former hunter technique better.
First - 4 step mounting block. Walk up to it.
My horses both know to walk around the mounting block while I’m walking up the steps and they both park themselves next to the block in the correct place with the stirrup slightly toward the left. This may have to change if I try the rearward facing move.
Then, I gather my reins in my left hand, and though I don’t usually take a hunk of mane as my boy hates his mane being messed with (even brushing causes issues…he’s a sensitive soul), I do rest it on the crest of the neck. My right hand USED to go on the right stirrup leather to sort of push it down as I boinged to keep the weight even. Now, it simply rests on the pommel for balance. Again, I may try pushing up as though on a pool fence…right now they just kinda sit there. My left stirrup base is usually right at the level of the mounting block with a long stirrup, only about 3-4" with a shorter stirrup. I’m really over the horse height-wise but not leaning.
Left foot in the stirrup perpendicular to the horse, bounce, swing, right foot in stirrup et. voila - I don’t even sit down at first. I was always taught to gently settle into the seat in the event of a cold backed or flighty horse, so I mount almost like a jockey does, but without assistance. It’s a boingy sort of motion. I am not sure if my leg is bent as I do it, but I’m guessing it is, and I’m also guessing it’s bent almost forward.
This process does NOT work with a dressage saddle with a longer stirrup. LOL. At least not for this broken body. I catch the cantle mid-swing, then end up wriggling into the tack like a hungry starfish. This does not please the horses, and feels less than safe. Then I struggle to sit up because I’m all “wonky and wrong” and once I get wonky and wrong it’s a struggle to sit back up. What is super weird is that I can reach one stirrup or the other stirrup bending over to the side and I can sit back up with no issue, so core strength and flexibility isn’t the problem, it seems to be bending straight forward and then standing up that cannot be done without my knees coming in and with a horse between them I can’t do that. Even off the horse that motion of having my feet apart (knees slightly bent) and coming up from the ground causes great pain as I come “through” center. Feels like my hips are “stuck”.
An equine physical therapist that I consulted with prior to surgery said “yours are the most jammed hips I’ve ever seen”, which is a prize no one wanted. I have been doing the prescribed exercises but possibly not enough.
Flexibility wise I have no problems with front/back. I can almost still do front-splits. Side, I can do if bent over, but I can barely move my hips out to the side without turning my toes or bending my knees fairly significantly. This is why jacked up stirrups on a CC saddle, riding like a show jumper with a closed hip angle is no issue, but less bend is a problem. It feels like a weakness and a stuck-ness. Again, I AM working on this, but I don’t really feel like I’m making much progress.
I’m a year out from my right hip surgery so I feel like I should be better than this! However, I did fall at the 3 month mark (horse spun out from underneath me in a super hard spook) and I cracked my sacroiliac pretty good, so it could be that my body is just saying “yeah…so…quit all of this” LOL
I’m paying the price for all of those years being a wild woman! Now I’m trying to be smarter about all of it, but battling my brain and old habits is tough!
When i get aboard a horse for his/her first time, i do it bareback from a mounting block. I lean forward with my sternum on their wither and slowly slide my leg across their rear. They feel me coming the entire length of their body and mine. When i’m get aboard with a saddle i slip my left foot in the saddle and do something similar… leg up higher to clear the cantle, but i am leaning ON the horse with the top half of my body. I remain bent like that to put the iron over my right boot then rise into an upright sitting position. Also, horses are pre-trained to be like statues at the mounting block, so as i mount i only have to deal with me, not them so much.
I don’t ride green-beans bareback (that may be the one thing I was never brave enough to do) but I did something similar in the CC saddle. Lean weight on back from the mounting block (after many times of leaning over and flopping on the offside etc.) then leaning over the saddle like most of my upper body was off the off shoulder, then take the leg over.
I’m not sure I can clear a dressage cantle like that but maybe I can. I’m going to try to do so today.
I can’t try bareback as both of these horses have rather pointy withers and I have no one to help me get off if I get stuck.
i only do bareback a few times. Just in the very very beginning. I am not sure if i’m right about this or not, but i think the horse understands better that it’s me up there. Then immediately into a CC saddle. a lightweight Thorowgood. Which is not too uppycantle. OH…and must add…the most recent horse, a mustang, really really understood when i relaxed my glutes and upper inside thigh. He wouldn’t MOVE until i relaxed! It was pretty cool how quickly he made the adjustment. I kinda hated taking that away from him…
Late to the conversation here, but I was also going to suggest shortening your near side stirrup to mount, then lowering it back on once in the saddle. It does help teach your horse to stand quietly until you tell them to move on.
I only started having trouble (I am a senior) after I got my right hip replaced. I reflexively started leaning way over the horse’s neck so I could swing my leg over the cantle. It probably looks stupid, but here we are 5 years down the road and I just cannot change the habit. I’ve decided that I’m old and fat and the heck with any observers who mock my crude mounting method. And yes, this is with a big mounting block.
Honestly, yes because it’s so much easier on the rider, the saddle/stirrup leather, and horse’s back. I have very tall horses so I do still have a slight step up to the stirrup iron, but the mounting block is so tall there’s no “hopping” to get on, just a step in the stirrup and swing the leg over.
With shorter horses, I can actually just swing my right leg over without even using the left stirrup.
To swing your leg over to dismount, I would try leaning further forward and then slightly over the right shoulder as your leg starts going over the cantle.
I think we have a mismatch in the problem. It’s the swinging that is the issue. My stirrup bottom is level with the mounting block. I can’t step over the horse either and a taller block really wouldn’t do it unless it was like 8 steps. I suppose I could drop onto a smaller horse, but I’m 5’9" and don’t have anything under 16h. I really do think it’s the leg over the cantle issue.
Have you tried the fully belly flop onto the pommel and then kicking your leg around? Or since it sounds like your horses stand pretty well, what about trying to swing the leg over the neck instead of the cantle?
I would think that if you’re smooth and rather quick about it this method can look pretty good. Anyway, i think it’s the entire process …the horse being attentive AND obedient and politely responsive once you ask to move on. And those things can be worked on without needing a human chiropractor!
Where do we put our hands to do the latter? I’m trying to picture it but I feel like I’d be rocking back into space and tangling myself in my reins ROFL So clearly I’m missing something.
I gather the reins in my left hand, half way or a little better up the neck with a handful of mane in there too. I put my right hand on the pommel, just resting, no pressure. I’m at the stirrup leather, or maybe slightly in front towards the shoulders. I get the left stirrup with my left leg, and angle my hips towards the hindquarters. As soon as weight gets placed in the stirrup, my body leans towards my left hand, my right hand leaves the pommel, and I bring my right leg over. I use my thighs to “brake” as soon as they make contact with the saddle, so that there is no “impact” of my booty on the saddle.
I doubt any of that really makes sense when typed out.
No worries…I’d basically have to more or less hold the reins with my left hand…but then…what to do with my right? Put it on the cantle maybe? Siting and spinning like it was a sidesaddle sounds more probable than going that other way, but again, a little vulnerable.
I don’t, my mounting block is quite tall. I do have to bend my knee for a jump saddle.
To put my foot in yet angle my hips back, I feel a little like a frog for a second. Having ridden some super sensitive horses, I don’t put my foot in with it facing the hindquarters because short people goose the horse as the foot turns forward. No fun.
EDIT: whoops, thought you meant my left leg. I have to think, but yes, my leg isn’t totally straight. It’s not even a 90 deg angle though, I don’t think!
So clearly I’m missing something.