Teaching a horse to pick up his rider from a raised mounting platform - Session One

This is the first session teaching Hank the Missouri Fox Trotter to pick up his rider from a raised mounting platform. Yes the horse can be taught to be responsible to move itself into position so you can easily mount from any raised mounting platform. This first session with Hank took less than 13 minutes and it is so much easier than trying to position your horse next to a mounting block then climb up only to have the horse move away and you get down again and move the horse back over - again and again. Yes make the horse responsible to move itself into position so you can easily mount it from a raised mounting platform.

I apologize that the video quality is very poor. It was getting dusk to full dark when this training session was done - I did what I could to adjust the brightness, etc. after self-filming the video via my phone on a tripod. I hope it proves helpful despite the very poor video quality.

You can see that Hank was concerned by me being up so high when I stepped up onto the picnic table. He was concerned enough that he initially acted like he had forgotten that being lightly tapped on the hip with the dressage whip means to move that hip over - but he actually had been trained that - his anxiety was simply kicking in. Once he settled in he then started yielding his hip as he knew he should.

The objective is to get the horse to move itself over very very near to the raised mounting platform the rider is standing upon and then stand there until told to move - no matter how many times the rider mounts and dismounts - no matter if a little kid is saddling the horse and has to get up and down repeatedly from the raised mounting platform to get it done.

Had it not gotten dark I would have taken Hank around and found MANY other raised platforms to stand upon and get Hank to pick up his rider from as part of the first session. Since it did get dark that will now get done in the second session - I will review on the familiar picnic table and then will go stand on a stump - go stand on the horse trailer fenders - go look for anything sturdy we can stand upon and Hank can safely pick up his rider from - until Hank realizes his job is to pick up his rider off literally anything his rider is standing on. And eventually the dressage whip will be replaced with finger clicking as the reinforcer to the verbal command.

Training horses always involves some risk of injury (or even death) to the horse, the trainer, any spectators, equipment used, etc. - this risk is totally your own as you will be making your own judgements on what to do. As with any suggestions on any subject you must weigh them out for yourself and proceed accordingly - at your own risk.

Remember to read, study, and ponder upon God's word each day and also pray each day to find out what God needs you to do today and then do it. And have a blessed day!!

Jack Griffes
Certified Farrier - Colt Starting Trainer https://griffes.tripod.com/farrier.html
Be part of the solution - Learn Founding Principles https://griffes.tripod.com/Learn-Founding-Principles.html