What are the signs that show you it's alright to mount a horse and what tells you that's better not to.
This article is referring to a horse with a halter and lead rope.
So before it gets too boring, let's jump to the seven steps! :)
1.Is the horse calm?
How low or high does he carry his head?
A horse with a high head is usually not very calm, that's a sign of frustration and stress.
So you'd like to see a horse with his neck and head almost level with his back but not too much higher than that.
How are his eyes?
Are they soft and gentle or do they express worries and alertness?
Is the horse blinking a lot or are his eyes fixated on something?
Needless to say that a calm horse has soft eyes and blinks pretty often.
How do his lower lips look like?
Are they tense or are they floppy and relaxed?
2.Is the horse paying attention to you?
When a horse is attentive to you then his head follows you when you move around him, be it from one or two meters or more.
So when you walk around him, he will follow and turn in the same direction as you do.
3.Is the horse standing still while you're moving closely around him?
You have to be able to leave the leadrope on the ground in front of the horse (ground tie) and walk around the horse without him moving at all.
One step further, he should be also comfortable with you jumping around him and making noise.
The horse has to know that when you're not using the lead rope and you don't have it in your hands, then his only job is to stand still quietly.
4.Is the horse comfortable with you touching him?
He should quietly take any approaches from you to pet him anywhere.
You should be able to touch his body without him protesting.
5.Is the horse comfortable with the saddle pad and saddle?
He should again stand still when saddleing.
If he tries to move when you saddle him that's a sign that he's not very comfortable with the saddle yet, he doesn't intirely understand what's going on and he's still worried about the process.
6.Is the horse giving to the lead rope?
The horse has to respond smoothly and easily to the lead rope.
Why is this important from the riding point of view?
This is how it translates to the saddle: when in the saddle, you will use the same cues as with the lead rope, only this time you'll do it with the reins.
As we are talking about bitless riding, you can convert your lead rope to reins or you can use any kind of reins at all.
Whatever the case, there's one thing that matters: getting your horse soft on the lead rope will get the same results on the reins.
So the horse has to smoothly follow the lead in all four directions: forward,backwards,left and right.
He has to respond to going forward, going backwards, going to the left and turning to the right.
And you have to check your breaks, which is flexing the horse's neck to left and right.
The horse should be very responsive and soft at this exercise.
7.Is the horse standing still for mounting?
How does the horse behave when you want to mount?
Does his head go high, does he get tense or does ha want to move around?
Or is he standing quietly and calmly for you to get in the saddle and once you're in the saddle is he patiently waiting for you for the next step?
These are the seven basic steps for testing a horse to see if it is safe to ride or how safe it is to ride so that you can decide on weather or not is mindful to get on his back.
Then of course there are exercises that you can do with a horse in order to get him more brave and safe and thus to have a deeper relationship between the two of you but that's another topic for another time. :)
Enjoy your bitless rides!
