Getting Your Stirrup to Stay In Place

When I ride my stirrup often turns and faces into my horse’s side. My foot then is right up against the side of the stirrup. How can I prevent this from happening? I notice it happens especially when I’m posting.

Two things come to mind when the stirrup does not generally stay in place. One is you may not be placing enough consistent weight in the stirrup. Unweighting the stirrup by losing your heel depth will allow it to turn easier. Try pressuring your heel down further, especially on the rising phase of posting. The other is perhaps your stirrup leathers are extremely flexible, which will not stabilize the stirrups as well as ones that are less supple.

I discuss stirrup angle and placement on your foot as well as leg position in my topic “Building Blocks to a Great Position Part 1” (link below) and we have a whole blog post on getting your “Heels Down” that features my topics “Exercises To Increase Heel Depth” and “Gaining Lower Leg Mobility.” To view it click here.