Horseback Riding 101

Lesson 3: Leading, Mounting and Dismounting, and Basic Position

Adjusting the stirrup length

For a long while, if you are taking lessons, your instructor will adjust your stirrups for you. Your job then is to raise your leg and move it forward or backward as your instructor asks so the adjustment can be accomplished; the buckle that regulates the length of the stirrup leathers—which hold the stirrup irons to the saddle—hide up under the skirt, the small saddle flap extending from the seat and over the much longer saddle flap.

There is a method for pre-adjusting stirrups, which, for most people, will put them within a comfortable, effective range, and it can be done before you mount. When the horse is properly standing, loop the reins over your left arm in such a way that you could easily let them slip off quickly if the need arose, but which give you control—and tells the horse you mean for him to stand—while you do the adjustment.

Pull the irons, which will have been tucked up under the skirt, down to the end of the leather. Take your left arm, even though the reins are looped over it, and extend it so that you can touch the stirrup bar that the leather passed through with the very tips of your fingers, while your arm is fully extended. With your right hand, put the bottom of the stirrup iron into your left armpit. IF it reaches exactly, the stirrup leathers are probably a decent, if not perfect, length for you. IF it falls short, stopping somewhere along the bottom of your upper arm, then you need to lengthen them until the iron fits into your armpit. If the iron more than reaches, you’ll have to lengthen the leathers by adjusting at the buckle. To do this, you will have to pull the top leather down until the buckle is far enough away from the stirrup bar to work with. Then, when you’ve adjusted up or down as many holes as you need to reach ‘armpit’ length, pull on the bottom leather until the buckle is back up under the skirt once more.

Depending on whether you are riding forward seat or balanced seat, two forms of hunt seat, the bottom of the stirrup iron should reach just below, at or above your ankle bone when you are seated in the saddle with your legs extending straight down in relaxed way. If you are riding balanced seat, the irons should reach either below or at your ankle, depending on your comfort. You will ride with them at this length until you begin to jump. Then you will raise them to either mid-ankle or slightly above, depending on your comfort. If you are riding forward seat, the irons will remain at the shorter length—at your ankle bone or a little above, depending on comfort—for both riding on the flat and over fences. NOTE: The upper body position is slightly different for each seat, also, as is the way a canter to fences is generally ridden. Both are, however, true English or hunt seats.

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