A few weeks ago, I rode Ron through water for the first time. It was his first ride over ten miles, and the first time we’d gone far enough to encounter multiple water crossings. Because of all the firsts, I was wearing my GoPro. I recorded his first ever water crossing and shared the video on Facebook. It got over 20,000 views and many comments in a relatively short time, a record for me. Not all the comments were positive, but most were, and in the back and forth of the less positive ones, I decided to write a blog post on how to ride your horse through water.
Jump to:
Essential skills to have before you try to ride your horse through water
The best way to tackle water for the first time is with a buddy
How to get a green horse to go through water when you are riding alone
The next water crossings
Building trust
Why it’s important to ride through water, alone
Before we go on, I’d like to make clear that there are many good ways to do this. Every horse is different, and every rider is different. What works for one person won’t necessarily work for another, and each horse responds in its own unique way. More importantly, there is a unique dynamic between every horse and rider. It is true that I have a method that works for me and can be applied with a few tweaks to any horse. However, that’s because by the time I ask a horse to go through water, established a certain degree of trust with the horse. This trust will be enhanced by the water-training experience. I will also have made sure that the horse has some basic skills that are necessary before attempting anything challenging.
Essential skills to have before you try to ride your horse through water
The very basics: Leading and going forward
Leading
Your horse should be rock-solid from the ground before you teach it to go over water. In fact, your horse should be rock-solid for all leading scenarios before you go out in terrain that is at all technical. This is a question of safety. You might need to get off on a dangerous hillside… and you might need to lead your horse through water.
Now, I personally try to avoid dismounting to do water crossings. First, my goal is to ride into the water, not lead, so I try to start the way I will go one. Second, I am safer in the saddle: You cannot get stepped on or leapt on when you are sitting on the horse’s back, and nothing on the ground (e.g., snakes, wild pigs, bulls….) can get you. Third, I don’t like to get my feet wet. This means I choose my water crossing carefully. I try to pick ones I can reasonably expect my horse to carry me through.
But you simply never know when you will have to get off and lead, so it’s vital to make sure you can do so safely if needed. This means that when you hold onto the lead or rein and walk forward, your horse will follow politely without stepping on you or hanging back. Your horse should also stop and hold still readily when asked. You stopping or falling is all the ask should take. You don’t want to be stepped on or knocked off a cliff.
Above: Ground manners are essential for technical trails. Fantazia is wonderful when it comes to leading along potentially dangerous terrain! This was April 2023.
Going forward when asked, where asked, and at the appropriate speed
Before you ask your horse to go somewhere scary, you should be able to get your horse to go exactly where you want it to, at the speed you want it to do so, in safe spaces. By safe spaces I mean an arena or familiar pasture. This post isn’t about basic training or riding; I am assuming you have basic skills. But sometimes it’s easy to overlook the importance of repetition and apparently “boring” work. We get tempted to take shortcuts and stop lower-level training as soon as the horse shows willing.
I am guilty as charged! I am always too eager to get out of the arena and out on the trail. But all that potentially boring arena work at the walk, jog, trot, lope, or canter not only helps achieve rhythm, it engrains in the horse the predisposition to do what you ask of it. Mindful repetition solidifies habit and builds trust. By mindful I mean that you should ask your horse to move at the exact rhythm and on the precise bend you want. Decide on that before starting off. I love a four-leaf clover pattern for this! (See my Clover-leaf exercise for a round arena.)
After enough simple forward work, the default response of your horse will be to take the gait you ask it for and maintain it at the speed and in the direction you indicate, until further notice. That’s easier said than done. It takes time. Some strategies to encourage the human part of the equation to stick to it: Music, audiobooks, daydreaming, planning for your next horse-related event.
More suggestions for making arena work less tedious can be found on my training ideas page.
Remember, it’s probably not going to be easier to get your horse to go through water than it is to get it to go exactly where you want in an arena.
More essential skills
Stopping and standing still
Going forward when asked is the keystone of the relationship between horse and rider, but there are other skills that are nearly as important. Stopping is probably the second most important. I don’t put in first for two reasons. First, it’s easier to teach a horse to stop than to move forward with rhythm. Second, if you leave a horse alone, it will always come to a halt eventually. With most horses most of the time, all you have to do is stop riding. (This is not true when you are headed home after a long ride 😉 That said, your horse should know how to stop when asked and stand still until further notice before you venture out into scary territory.
Yielding to leg pressure
Your horse should also yield to your legs. This means moving away from pressure. Your horse should move off your leg at all gaits. Ideally it should be able to turn on the haunches, forehand, and sidepass. This might seem irrelevant to crossing water, but when your horse may try to avoid going forward by going sideways and turning. The more automatized its response to leg pressure, the easier it will be for you to correct its attempts to avoid the water.
Backing
Last but not least, your horse should back readily, and carefully, when asked to do so. You might end up some place where forward is not an option. The probability of this increases when your horse is trying to avoid going through water!
For more about essential skills for tackling tricky trails, read my blog on the Prerequisites of riding in the Sierra Nevada.
The best way to tackle water for the first time(s) is with a buddy
If at all possible, ride with someone whose horse will calmly enter water. Ideally, the horse will be patient and willing to have your horse follow closely. (In other words, it shouldn’t be a kicker. River would never do!) Even better if the horse also drinks. Your horse will learn to drink from natural sources faster if it sees another horse do so.
When riding with someone else, ask them to go slowly enough to give your horse time to think. It’s not usually helpful if the other horse crosses the water and continues down the trail. You want your horse to learn to cross calmly, not in a panicked leap.
If there is a big body of water, ask your friend to take their horse out in it bit by bit. Let your horse stand by its buddy until water is no longer scary.
Ponying is also an option
If you don’t have anyone to ride with but do have another horse that does water well, and will pony your green horse, then do this. That’s how I taught River to go through and drink from water. I took both mares out on long rides and switched off. At first, whenever there was water, I would ride Fantazia. Once River got more comfortable, I would ride her.
(Read my blog post on the Many advantages of ponying your horse.)
Just having another horse alongside will make a green horse feel more confident. However, they might not just follow you at first. If you aren’t used to ponying, you should practice first. No matter what, be prepared to have to let go the lead rope. Be patient. If you are where you can let your horse off lead, you can do it and just ride off. They’ll follow eventually (unless they can turn around and high tail it for home easily).
You can also use a serious halter and lead and wrap that lead around your horn (if you have one) and drag the other horse across. When I was nine, my show horse Morgan gelding balked at a river crossing on a 4H trail ride. He was willing to let dozens of horses go on down the trail rather than getting his feet wet. A cowboy offered to drag him across. I was not enthusaistic but my mom told me to get off and let them do it. After breaking the curb on my Weymouth (!?), they attached a serious rope to his halter and dragged him. From that point on he loved water.
Above: River learning to drink from a stream from Fantazia. By this time, I could ride River through water an dpony Fantazia. In fact, River loves water! (Watch a video of her playing in a stream.) But she still wouldn’t drink until this day, when Fantazia drank. River watched and learned. From that moment on, she would drink anywhere.
How to get a green horse to go through water when you are riding alone
Unfortunately, you cannot always count on having a friend to ride with or a horse to pony from. That has been the case with Ron. I have followed my boyfriend on his horse through the marshy bit of our cattle pasture, but you can’t really see the water there. Ron is not a horse that minds feeling his feet sink in mud… as long as he cannot see water! Ron and I have been riding out on the trail since I got him, but I waited to try water until I found the ideal crossing.
Step 1: choose an easy water crossing that cannot possibly end poorly
It’s absolutely essential that nothing bad happen to your horse for the first several times you cross water. By bad I mean no quicksand or alligators, or anything your horse could interpret as quicksand or alligators. Avoid boggy areas and places with Other Scary Stuff. Avoid places where your horse could jump into something that could hurt it (rocks, fences, sharp sticks). Choose a place where your horse can see a long way in all directions. Ideally, choose a place that has green grass for your horse to eat if it relaxes enough. The most important thing at this point is not to break your horse’s trust. It has to learn that you will not ask it to do anything that will hurt it.
Bonus points if you find one where your feet won’t get too wet if you have to get off and lead.
Step 2: Approach the water with confidence
Just continue riding as usual. Do not shorten your reins or tense up or do anything at all that might make your horse think something worrisome is about to happen. If the horse stops to look, let it. Then ask it to proceed.
If you are very very lucky or it’s been so wet all your pastures have been flooded, the horse might just walk right up to and through the water. If you are this lucky, just let it happen. Don’t try to micromanage the horse. Let it choose its own speed and place of crossing.
(At this point, I do not insist on the horse walking. I will have chosen a safe place for it to jump if that’s the way it wants to do it. Hold on to the horn if you have one, to avoid getting it in your stomach if you horse decides to try out for the Olympics. Hold on to the mane if you don’t have a horn and want to hold on.)
You probably won’t be this lucky.
Step 3: When the horse tells you it would prefer not to get its feet wet, keep asking.
There are many different ways in which the horse can tell you it doesn’t want to mess with wet areas. Some are listed below. I am sure there are others. Most horses will try several or all of the ones below. This is when it’s important to patiently redirect the horse towards the water every time it tries to turn away from it. Keep your reins as long as possible. Let the horse look and explore, but don’t let it turn away. As long as it is facing the water and not backing up, leave it alone.
***Leaving the horse alone is a great reward. At this point, don’t be in a hurry. If you are under time pressure, don’t try to train a horse to cross water. The key to success is being willing to sit there until the horse crosses, even if it takes hours. Horses can tell when they can outwait you.
Scenario 1: Stopping
Your horse may stop with its neck tense and heart pounding so hard you can feel it in your legs. Let it stop and stare. Wait till you can feel its heart slow. As long as it doesn’t turn away, just sit there. Eventually the horse will move.
If your horse approaches the water when it decides to move, that’s great. Let it. If it crosses, let it. More likely it will move into one of the following actions.
Scenario 2: Searching for an alternative without absolutely refusing
Many horses will start walking up or down along the bank (but not too close). Perhaps they are hoping for a way around it. Perhaps they are trying to tell you no without outright rebelling. Either way, I let them do this for a while as long as it isn’t going to get us both in trouble. If you’ve picked your water crossing wisely, they will have room to explore.
When your horse get to the end of the safe zone (perhaps there are rocks, or a fence, or you just don’t want to get too far away from your chosen path), turn it the other way. Let it work its way back to (and past if there is room) your starting point. Again, keep your reins as long as possible.
I let my horses do this without pressure until I feel them decide they’d really rather just turn around. This usually happens, unless they think the only way home is over the water. They will usually just try to turn slowly back, but a few horses will at that point decide to make a break for it, similarly to Scenario 3.
No matter how they escalate the refusal, I respond by asking them to face the water fully and stop. If they don’t want to do that, I increase the pressure (make them work until they do, back and forth). Remember, standing without the rider bothering is a reward.
Scenario 3: Saying hell no!
Some horses will be dramatic about the situation. They will wheel and try to leave quickly. If they have developed a pattern of resistance in their training at some point, they will take it up. (E.g., some horses have learned to resist by running backwards or bucking or rearing. If you have not had the horse in question its entire life, you might be surprised at this point.)
I do not escalate and do not punish at this point. I simply turn the horse to face the water and ask it to stop. Just as I said above, if they don’t want to do this, I make them work. Remember, turn turn turn. Horses can’t bolt, buck, or rear if their noses are near your leg. (Yes you may have to use your muscles to keep the nose there.) You can always resort to little circles. I hate this because it makes me dizzy, but it does work.
What if the horse is getting out of control? What if you are?
If you feel like you are going to lose control or are in danger, get off. And when I say lose control, I mean not only of your horse. If you are going to lose control of your temper, you need to get off and give yourself a time out. There is nothing to be gained by losing your temper and jerking on the horse’s mouth or yelling or thumping on it. Even if it’s being naughty (e.g., it knows it’s not supposed to buck), it’s best to just calmly redirect. It will associate any bad memories with the water. You don’t want that, so if you feel like you’re losing your calm, dismount.
This is why your horse needs to be solid from the ground. Some people just get off right at the beginning. That’s fine too. Eventually, though, you will want to ride through water.
No matter what, just keep asking
Once you are back in control of yourself and your horse, ask the horse to go forward. Increase the pressure if it moves away. Reward by letting it stand for a bit when it moves closer and/or sniffs the water. Then ask it to go forward again. Keep doing this until it crosses.
It will cross eventually. Again, I let the horse choose the way of crossing at first. If it wants to jump, fine.
I talk to my horses a lot during these events. The longer it takes, the more I talk. If it looks like I’m going to be there over 15 minutes, I might listen to an audiobook to avoid getting impatient, but in the end, I always end up talking them through it.
Above: The final minutes of Ron’s first ever water crossing. Notice how safe and easy the little creek is. No boggy mud, no rocks, and he could see a long way in all directions. We had already spent 15 minutes, five of which I spent talking on the phone. (This is my time out. I let Ron stand and distracted myself to avoid getting impatient.) By this time I knew he was on the point of crossing so I encouraged him actively. Experience will teach you when this is the case.
When the horse crosses, reward it by moving on
I never school over a water once a horse has crossed. I want my horses to understand that their job is to cross, and when they do so they will be rewarded by not having to deal with that water until the next time we happen to need to cross it.
The next water crossings
Ideally, you will have at least 2-3 more easy water crossings to do on the same ride. Your horse will get more confident every time it crosses water without being eaten by alligators or sinking in quicksand. Every horse is different, though, and sometimes your path leads you to a less desirable crossing. With River, the first water crossing took about ten minutes but the second less than half that. The third time she just walked in. But this was during a wet winter. It’s more difficult in a dry season!
Ron’s first day of water
With Ron, I was less lucky. Our second crossing was muddy and 3-4 feet wide. The “good” part was only about 10 feet long, and there were rocky steep parts on each side. (Not very rocky nor very steep, but remember, it was only his second time!) He was genuinely afraid, so I had to get off, get my feet wet, and risk being junped on. He did jump, but not on me. I still don’t like the feeling of a horse jumping at me!
Our third crossing was much better. He had learned that he had to cross. It took only 30 seconds (I know because I was recording it! Watch the video here: Ron’s third water crossing.) He did jump, but that was all right. He learned the wisdom of not jumping in our final water experience for the day.
Find a bigger body of water to discourage jumping
On our way home, there is a medium size pond, usually full of water fowl and frequently visited by cattle and wildlife. I usually don’t go in unless it’s higher, but I thought it was important for Ron to enter water he could not jump. Because I knew most of the pond would get deep quickly, I chose a narrower part where the feeder stream comes in. It wasn’t that narrow. It was between 15 and 20 feet across where I pointed Ron at the water.
Unfortunately, I didn’t start my GoPro at first, because I was pretty sure Ron woud take at least five minutes to think about it. I wasn’t going to hurry him. Ron, however, had other ideas. After only a minute of walking back anf forth and snorting, he made a huge leap into the water! Maybe he thought he could cross it, but if he did he didn’t think too carefully. Rather then making a running start and waiting to jump until he was as close as possible to the water, he sprang from a standstill about three feet from the bank.
This meant we splashed down in the deepest part. He immediately jumped again (not far; he was up to his shoulder in water), and then a third time. that finally got us out of the water. We scared a small herd of feral pigs that were under a tree by the bank, but Ron was too traumatized to notice.
He had algae everywhere. He must have stuck his head in, or maybe it splashed a lot, because his halter and bridle were green with algae. I was wet up to my thighs and covered in algae. And I couldn’t stop laughing.
I don’t think Ron liked being laughed at, but it was funny. He was so surprised.
Above: Algae!! Ron and I were covered with it after he leapt into the middle of a small pond. His halter was covered. Even his ears had algae.
Big water both discourages jumping and teaching them it can be fun
We had to cross back to the other side, so I took Ron up to where the creek came in, which was muddy with some grass. I could feel him think about jumping, and then discarding it. He inched his way in, starting with marshy grass and progressing through mud into water. The funniest thing was that once he was in the pond, he was scared to get out. It took a while to find a bit of bank he was willing to go towards, and then he got out quickly.
Above: Ron in the pond, learning that it’s not as bad as it looks (especially if you don’t leap into the deeper parts!)
Building trust
(Coming soon: How to get your horse to trust you.)
As soon as Ron climbed out of the pond, we headed back to the trailer. I let him walk on a long rein the entire time. If there had been green grass, I would have let him graze at will. He’d done great, going over and into water and mud. He had learned that his basic job of going forward where pointed applied to water. Most importantly, he had learned that when I ask him to do something he thinks is scary, it won’t be nearly as scary as he expected. He’d seen that as soon as he did the job, he could put it behind him.
The most essential lesson of all? Ron had learned that I trusted him. I had asked him to go where he’d rather not have, but I had given him the freedom to choose how to go there. Yes, I had set some boundaries (no turning around, no going through the rocks), but I hadn’t forced him to cross the water in a specific place or in a specific way. He had had choices, and I had trusted him to make them for us.
Tackling challenging new terrain such as water is a huge trust-builder if you do it well. When the horse feels you trust him, he will trust you. Each time you ask him to go over water and he does so successfully, he learns that he can trust you to be a good leader (not lead him into danger). Each time you allow him to make decisions, he becomes more confident of his skill and of your trust in him.
Ron was much more confident in me and in my belief that he could do this the next time we rode out.
A week after that first ride, I rode out and up the steep hills in back of our place. This time I did not avoid water as I had the first times we rode out there. Instead I sought it out carefully. Again, I took care to choose safe, “easy” crossings. The one time we had to cross a creek at the bottom of a steep rocky gulch, I dismounted and led Ron across. He made the other three water crossings with me in the saddle, with very little hesitation.
Above: The third water crossing on our second water-training ride. Ron didn’t even question me when I asked him to cross.
Two weeks later we returned to the scene of the original crime
I trailered as I had earlier, and we rode about 12.5 miles. Ron and I rode a clockwise loop that partially overlapped with the counter-clockwise loop we had done before. This would allow me to revisit his first-ever water crossing going the other way. First, however, we did three other water-crossings. I started with a place where he could choose to cross more water where it ran over the road, or move to the side and cross where there was grass. Ron chose the grass. (Watch the video of our crossing.) Again, it was important to give him choice, allowing him to develop a sense of agency in a safe place with options.
Our next crossing was also at a place where a creek crossed an otherwise groomed ranch road. This time I restricted his range of options for crossing (I didn’t want to get in the rocks), but I did let him choose the speed.
Above: Ron jumps across in a safe place. It took less than a minute for him to get to the other side. Great progress!
I didn’t take a video of the third crossing (besides, we’ve got enough already!), but I do want to share how well Ron did going back across his first ever little creek:
Above: Ron crosses back the other way. Yes, he has learned confidence and trust! We’re ready to try more challenging creeks!
The time you spend building trust will pay off when you have to cross water in challenging or scary places.
I’ll talk more about trust in a later blog post, but for now I want to emphasize that the trust built in these first water encounters will pay off over and over again. Once you’ve established trust, your horse will go where you ask… until it genuinely believes there is danger. At this point, it’s up to you as herd leader to decide if you need to take another route. You’ll know if you have been trusting your horse to make decisions. Take a second look at where you’ve asked them to go and think about why they might be saying no.
Above: Jazz didn’t want to cross this creek for two reasons. First, the road has washed out. He didn’t like the fact that we had to cross water instead of a culvert. Second, there was a dead animal in the way. This was the second time we had done this, and I still had to insist. I was empathetic, but this was really the only feasible way home.
Of course, it’s important to know your horse. When Fantazia tells me “I don’t think so,” I listen. If I ask a second time and she gives a hard no, we go another way. When River tells me know, it depends on the set of her ears and how she talks to me. Sometimes she’s just being naughty. I always give her a chance though, and when it comes to water, River almost always wants to go in.
Above: River’s first solo water crossing. I had already ponied her from Fantazia many times, but it’s different to do it alone! This was not an easy creek to start with. It had been raining so much that there were few easy ones! River had however been ponied across.
It took her much less time to do her second solo crossing, just a little bit after that first one. You can watch the video of it by clicking here.
Why it’s important to ride through water, alone
Because it is different to do negotiate terrain with your horse alone, it is essential to do so on a regular basis. Your horse will never learn to trust you fully if there is another equine around. It’s hours spent alone together that builds that trust. Water crossings are ideal for trust building because they are difficult at first, even when entirely safe.
It’s also vital to ride across rather than lead as soon as you can. This is because when you lead, your horse is following. It’s not making decisions. You cannot demonstrate your trust in the horse’s ability if you are leading. To do that, you must let go enough that the horse has some degree of choice over what you do together. The more you do this, the easier it will be to ride your horse through water or any other challenging terrain.