Ask why everyone mounts from the left and you will eventually hear about swords. A cavalryman wore his saber on the left hip, so swinging the right leg over kept the blade clear of the horse. The sword is gone; the habit stayed, hardened into something students mistake for a law of horsemanship. It is not. It is a convention, and at our barn we treat mounting a horse from both sides as ordinary schooling, not a party trick. Here is why we bother, and exactly how we build it.
Where Left-Only Came From
Military drill standardized the left side and generations of barns copied the drill. There is nothing wrong with tradition, but it is worth noticing when a tradition’s reason has retired. Nothing in the horse prefers your left-side mount. In the herd, life happens on both sides of every horse: companions approach either flank, threats show up in either eye, and no horse gets to face the world one-sided. A horse that copes only with left-side handling was not born that way. It was schooled into it, one repetition at a time, by people who never asked the other question.
Why Mounting a Horse From Both Sides Matters
The first reason is education. Horses do not automatically carry a lesson learned in one eye across to the other; each side of the horse has to meet the work for itself. A horse mounted only from the left has learned half the job. The right side, never asked, stays green, and green sides are where surprises live. Teach both and there is simply less unschooled horse walking around under you.
The second reason is physical evenness. Every mount loads one stirrup, torques the saddle the same direction, and asks the same muscles to brace, hundreds of times a year. Alternating sides spreads that load, which is easier on the horse’s back, the saddle’s fit, and your own crooked habits. Riders are one-sided too; the off side is honest about how much of your skill was actually habit.
The third reason is practical safety. On a sidehill you mount from the uphill side, whichever side that is. On a narrow trail, after a gate or a dropped glove, the safe remount may only exist on one side, and it may not be the left. An injury, yours or a stiff joint of the horse’s, can retire a side without notice. The day you need the right side is a bad day to introduce it.
Prepare on the Ground First
Mounting is a poor place for a horse to discover that humans exist on the right. Before the stirrup enters the conversation, audit the daily routine. Do you lead from both sides? Groom and saddle from both? Pick up feet, bridle, and rub the horse all over from either flank? If the whole ritual of the horse’s life runs down one side, fix that first, until the horse is genuinely ambidextrous about being handled. Most of the mounting problem dissolves right there.
The other prerequisite is standing still. A horse that walks off at the mounting block has a separate lesson to learn before this one, and stacking a new side on top of moving feet helps nobody.
The Progression, Step by Step
Work in a quiet space, on a day with no deadline. Treat the new side exactly as you would treat a green horse, because on this subject, that is what you have.
First, rub the horse over the right side: shoulder, barrel, hip, the places your body will pass. Flap the stirrup leather, jiggle the fender, slap the seat softly. You are asking, does any of this worry you? Believe the answer.
Second, weight the stirrup with your hand. Pull down, lean on it, let the saddle shift the unfamiliar direction. Watch the eye, the ears, the tail, the feet.
Third, position yourself as you would for any careful mount: a soft bend of the neck toward you, so that if the horse must move, the hindquarters step away rather than into you.
Fourth, foot in the stirrup and bounce. Then weight it. Then stand in it, lean over the seat, and step down. Spread these over several short sessions if the horse needs that. If worry shows at any step, drop back one step, finish on ease, and quit. Reduce the ask; never enlarge the fight.
Fifth, swing over slowly, settle like a feather, sit for one quiet breath, and step down again. Dismount practice belongs on both sides too, for the same reasons.
From then on, alternate. Some barns mount left on even days and right on odd ones; the scheme matters less than the habit. A mounting block on either side spares two backs at once.
Signs of Understanding, Signs of Worry
Understanding looks boring: level head, loose tail, a hind foot resting, the horse waiting with weight parked while you take your time. Worry looks like a raised head, a hollowed back, feet creeping, a clamped tail, or the horse swinging its hip away to reclaim the eye it trusts. Worry is not defiance. It is the horse telling you which step of the progression you skipped. Go back one step and buy it properly.
The Common Mistake and Its Fix
The classic mistake is treating the off side as a stunt: one cold attempt a year, no preparation, then the conclusion that “he doesn’t like it.” Of course he doesn’t. He was never taught it, and the annual ambush confirms his suspicion. The fix is the opposite of drama: make the right side unremarkable. A little, often, prepared the same way the left once was, until the horse cannot remember which side was supposed to be special.
That is the quiet goal of the whole exercise. Mount from both sides until neither side is special. Even is the destination, in the horse and in you.
Mounting, seat, and steering are built carefully in Course 103 of our Level 1 program. See the website for current offerings.
Related: If the Horse Walks Off When You Mount Related: Seat Before Hands: Building an Independent Seat