05/25/2026
Your pre ride routine is probably grooming, tacking up, and a safety check before mounting. That covers the basics but there is a handful of things worth adding to that routine that takes minimal time and makes a significant difference to the quality of the ride that follows. This includes physical preparation for the rider's body, a moment of genuine horse observation, and a quick intention setting conversation before the foot goes in the stirrup. Here is what I wish every rider would do before they ever got on...
PHYSICAL PREPARATION
1. Hip circles and hip flexor stretches
Riders spend most of their day sitting in cars, at desks, and on sofas with their hip flexors in a shortened position. Tight hip flexors in the saddle translate directly into a chair seat, a braced lower back, and hips that cannot follow the horse's movement. Two minutes of hip circles and a simple standing hip flexor stretch before mounting does more for a rider's sitting position than thirty minutes of correction from the rail. Make it a standard part of your pre-ride routine and watch what happens to the quality of the first few minutes in the saddle.
2. Ankle circles and heel drops
A stiff ankle cannot absorb the horse's movement and cannot maintain a correct heel position under any kind of pressure. Ask your student to roll each ankle in both directions and do a few slow heel drops off a mounting block step before they get on. It takes ninety seconds and it wakes up the joints that need to be mobile and absorbing in the stirrup. Riders who do this consistently maintain their heel position under pressure far better than those who go straight from the car to the saddle.
2. Shoulder rolls and neck release
Tension lives in the shoulders and neck of almost every rider before they even get on. A quick deliberate shoulder roll - back and down, not up - followed by slow neck circles releases the upper body tension that travels straight down into the hands and contact the moment the rider picks up the reins. A tense shoulder produces a tense hand. A released shoulder gives you a fighting chance at soft elastic contact from the first stride.
3. Spinal rotation seated on the mounting block
Sit on the mounting block with feet flat on the ground and slowly rotate the upper body left and right by reaching the opposite hand toward the outside knee. This warms up the thoracic spine that needs to follow the horse's movement and activates the core stabilizers that keep a rider upright without bracing. Most riders have minimal thoracic mobility from daily life and it shows up in the saddle as stiffness, blocking, and an inability to follow the movement through the corners.
HORSEMANSHIP AND GROUNDWORK
1. Observe the horse before you interact with it
Before your student goes to the cross ties ask them to spend sixty seconds just watching the horse. Is he relaxed or is something off today? Are his ears soft and curious or pinned and tense? Is he standing quietly or shifting and unsettled? Teaching your students to read the horse's state before they start handling him is one of the most important safety habits you can build and one of the most consistently skipped. A student who arrives at the barn already assessing their horse is a student who shows up to the lesson with information that changes how they ride.
2. Grooming with attention not efficiency
Grooming is not just pre-ride maintenance, it is the first conversation. A student who grooms with genuine attention and runs their hand along the back and checks for sensitivity, who notices the muscle tone and any heat in the legs, who pays attention to how the horse responds to being handled - arrives at the mounting block with a completely different relationship to that animal than the student who rushed through it to get to the riding faster. Teach them to groom like it matters because it does and explain why it is so important.
3. A few minutes of groundwork
Even five minutes of basic groundwork before mounting such as asking the horse to walk and halt in hand, to move away from pressure, to stand quietly, etc settles both the horse and the rider before the lesson begins. It establishes communication on the ground before asking for it in the saddle. For a tense horse, it is a chance to identify what kind of ride is coming and adjust the plan accordingly. For a nervous rider it rebuilds confidence in a lower stakes environment before the complexity of being in the saddle is added.
MENTAL PREPARATION
1. Set an intention for the ride
Ask your student before they mount what do you want to focus on today? Not a complicated goal, just one specific thing. Quiet hands. Looking up through the corners. Staying soft in the transition. A rider who has named their focus before the lesson begins rides with more intentionality than one who is just waiting to be told what to work on. It also develops the habit of self directed practice that independent confident riders use every single ride.
2. Check in honestly
How are you feeling today, physically and mentally? This question takes ten seconds and the answer changes everything about how you plan the next forty five minutes. A rider who is tired, sore, or anxious needs a different lesson than one who is fresh and confident. A student who knows you will ask and that the answer actually matters feels safer being honest about it. A student who feels safe being honest with you is a student you can actually teach.
The riding begins before the mounting block. The instructors who build genuine preparation into every lesson through physical, horsemanship, and mental prep produces riders who are more present, more relaxed, and more ready to learn from the very first stride. Start the lesson on the ground and what happens in the saddle will be better for it.
What do you do with your students before they get on the horse?
