Hi I have a 3 year old beautiful black TN walker she is very skittish and doesn't like to mount or dismount what can the problem be? She is a great rider just doesn't like you getting on or off.Help please

I was just reading an article on parking your horse (don't ask me the name of the magazine). The exercise involved standing untacked beside a fence, platform or mounting block where you are above the horse and using a dressage whip, or carrot stick (desinsitize the horse to the whip), tapping on the offside to position the horse alongside the object. You start slowly then progerss to longer periods, leaning over the horse, then tacked up. This was done facing both ways.

I cause this problem in my horses a number of ways including being too tentative in mounting because of fear and impaired mobility. (30 years is a long time to be away from riding and I have developed a healthy fear of heights/falling).

When you are above your horse you are a predator until they get used to it. I start my foals by jumping up and down alongside of them so that the motion isn't new. You want to know that gets some interresting reactions, to say nothing of what it does for my poor middle aged frame.

***Edited By: TJRuff on 1/26/2007 5:01:22 PM***
Reason: sp

Here's the problem ...your horse doesn't want to be ridden! this needs to be corrected as soon as possible. the best way to teach a horse to stand still for mounting takes time and patience, because you won't be riding for a few days, but instead, doing nothing but mounting and dismounting until your horse stands for this.
you might want to get a mounting block for your comfort.When you are standing to mount, you want your right rein to be slightly tighter, cause the horse is going to move forward and you need to control this by pulling gently and give a very firm WHOA. as soon as the horse stops moving you release the pressure and praise.You just keep doing this for as long as it takes until the horse gets tired of the repitition and eventually will stand still. Sometimes i have to do this for an hour, but I would keep the lessons to about 30 minutes at a time, a few times a day. DO NOT GIVE IN...everytime the horse even shifts it's weight like it's going to start moving out, you must pull the horse to a stop and give a firm WHOA. You might even have to go back to the ground work..(you did do your ground work,right?)to get the WHOA command firmly in place in horsey's head!

Do you have someone around who can stand with the horse and hold her for you while you mount? Sometimes haveing a person there to hold and reasure them can help a lot. Once they are used to that, then work wean them off of that, and work on mounting on your own. Are you getting on from the ground of off of a block? If it is off of a block, you might want to work on getting the horse used to standing by the block, so that is routing and not a big deal for them on it's own. After you have gotten on, take a minute of so, and just let the horse stand there again. Just get them used to standing by the block and waiting for you to move them forward before they go. Work on little bits at a time to build confidance. I would be careful about spending too much time repeating the exact same excersize in a row with a young horse especially. If they start to get frustrated with you, you will end up fighting the horse, and will accomplish very little, it is about building confidance slowly. If you really arent getting anywhere with an excersize, try and break it down even further so you can accomplish it, build confidance and always try and end on a positive note.

Also, when you get on, make an effort to sit down gently, try not to 'plop' on the horses back to hard, ome horses really dont like it.

Horses fussing for mounting isnt an uncommon thing, and he is still a really young horse. good luck with it :)

I have a horse in training and I watch him when he works with my horse. After dismounting, he makes the horse stay in one place. He walks around the horse and starts to walk away and turns back to the horse. The natural thing is the horse will want to follow you but the horse is not suppose to move. If she does, he positions the horse back in the same spot and continues the drill until she stays put. This training will help when you mount the horse. I hope this helps.

I had someone tell me one time their horse wouldn't stand still when they mounted and I watched and they were digging their boot in it's side. They don't stand still long when that happens.