How to Stop a Horse From Walking Off When You Mount

Horses might walk off while being mounted to regain their balance, so training them from an early age will keep them squared up for riding. Keep a horse steady for mounting with helpful advice in this video on training horses.

Hi. My name is Rick Gore. I'm out here at the Travis Equestrian Center. Today, we are going to talk about how to stop a horse from walking off on you when you are mounting him. So, Buddy here is pretty good at this. He listens pretty well but the reason a horse walks off when you mount him is because you let him or you train him to do so. You've never taught him not to walk off. Just like, if I didn't want him rubbing on me, I could teach him not to do that. So, if your horse is walking off on you, it's because you haven't trained him not to walk off on you. And it's probably because you've done things that caused him to walk off, by not having good balance, by not having good lunging ability to get in a saddle quickly. You either hang on a saddle, you pull, you try to pull yourself up on a saddle. You pull the horse off balance and he normally walks off to catch his balance. So, a couple things you can do to stop a horse from doing that is make him square up. Now this horse is pretty strong. He's kind of squared up right now. But if I want him to square up, I'm going to push him a little bit. And when I push him, look at his feet. His feet are going to square up. There, I've just made him increase his balance and now he's ready to support me because I've moved him. So, he's less likely to lose his balance when I get off him. So then when I get on him, I need to make sure my foot's in a stirrup and I get a good lunge, nice and high and I go right up over him, and I get my body over him. And I'm ready with this rein that if he walks off, I can stop him. Now, if I hang here and I keep a loose rein and I start wiggling, watch this horse walk off here. He's going to be like, "Dude what are you doing? What are you doing? I can't..." . There. I just made him walk off because I wasn't prepared and I didn't get on him. So if your horse is walking off, it's because you're making him walk off. If you get in the saddle right, you square him up before you get on, you make sure you got a good rein on him so he knows not to walk off, he's going to stand still for you, let you get in the saddle and know not to walk off. Another thing I do when I get on a horse, is I usually flex him. So he knows when I get on, he gets flexed, so he knows that I'm not going to walk off until I get flex. So, I'm setting him up for success by telling him, "Hey, when I get on you, you don't walk off until we flex and I until I tell you to." Good boy. And that's how you stop a horse from walking off on you. And again, having the reins, having good balance, square the horse up, and teach him that walking off is not the correct answer. Standing still is.