What about mounting with a helper is that a good idea?

Mounting with a helper — a person on the ground who holds the horse's head, steadies the stirrup, or provides some form of assistance while the rider mounts — is sometimes genuinely useful, sometimes genuinely counterproductive, and often used as a habitual crutch that prevents both the horse and the rider from developing the independence and the specific skills that safe reliable mounting actually requires. Whether it is a good idea in any specific situation depends on the reason the helper is being used, the stage of the horse's training, and whether the helper's presence is building toward an outcome where help is no longer needed or simply managing a problem indefinitely without resolving it. The most legitimate use of a helper during mounting is with a green horse in the early stages of his under-saddle training — specifically in the first several mounting experiences where the horse's response to the weight of a rider swinging into the saddle is genuinely unpredictable. During the first few rides of a young horse, a capable ground person who can observe the horse's body language, speak calming words, and position the horse correctly while the rider carefully and slowly mounts from a block provides a genuine safety contribution. This use of a helper is time-limited — it is appropriate for the first handful of rides while the horse learns that mounting is safe and comfortable, and it becomes progressively less necessary as the horse's mounting behavior confirms that the process is genuinely relaxed and accepted. The problematic use of a helper during mounting is as a permanent solution to a horse that will not stand for mounting without assistance. Using a helper to manage this behavior without addressing the cause is exactly backwards from what the situation requires. The horse that does not stand for mounting is telling you something specific — either the mounting process is physically uncomfortable, the saddle fit is poor, or the horse has never been correctly taught that standing still through the entire mounting process is the expected response — and a helper who manages the not-standing behavior by holding the horse's head is removing the diagnostic signal without addressing the problem the signal is pointing to. Teaching the horse to stand for mounting without help is a specific training task best accomplished through systematic work. The horse should be taught to stand at the mounting block from the ground before mounting is attempted — approaching the block, standing beside it quietly, and remaining still as the handler moves around him. Then mounting is introduced progressively: stirrup weight applied from the block without full mounting, partial mounting that returns to the block before full weight is committed, full mounting with the rider sitting quietly before asking the horse to move. Each stage is confirmed as genuinely relaxed and willing before the next is introduced.