Lunging is a very popular and common practice in just about every horse discipline. Every field advocates the lunging of horses in some way. It’s used for a range of purposes from helping to start a horse under saddle, building fitness, and teaching posture and balance to warming a horse up. Some people use it to teach obedience and confidence and others use it to burn off energy. There are lots of reasons people lunge a horse. Some I agree with and others I don’t.
As a trainer who is mainly interested in connecting with a horse’s mind, the primary reason I lunge a horse is to attain and improve the amount of focus a horse offers me. There are other reasons I might lunge a horse but none surpass the need for improving focus. If focus is not the primary goal lunging has very little purpose to me.
Even when I am lunging a horse to help gain its confidence and smooth out transitions between gaits or to gain better balance and straightness or whatever, underpinning any of those tasks is to improve focus. The importance of focus supersedes all other purposes of lunging a horse.
Most people’s idea of lunging is to ask a horse to circle around them. Most people’s idea of lunging is to perform endless circles with occasional interruptions of gait and direction. Most people’s idea of lunging involves mindless repetition of a pattern that almost forces a horse to not focus.
Several years ago I was training out of a facility where a lady with a Prix St George dressage horse was boarding. Most days the woman put her horse in the round yard, fitted side reins to the bit, and lunged for 10 minutes at a walk and trot while standing in the middle and reading a book. After about 10 minutes she would ask the horse to change direction and repeat the exercise. Then she would ride. One day she asked me if I had any tips for how to stop her horse from being so nervous and spooky when she rode him out of the arena. I told her my best suggestion was to stop the mindless lunging and give him a reason to be more focused. She didn’t agree and kept lunging her horse mindless before every ride.
You are probably asking how I approach lunging to encourage a horse to be better focused while circling at the end of a lunge line.
What I do and how much I do will depend on each horse. It depends on what it already knows and its emotional state at the time.
The principle is that when I see a horse losing focus I interrupt what it is doing with a new question. But more than that, the interruption needs to be to ask the horse something that requires it to engage its mind. It can’t be to ask it to do something that it has done a thousand times before and can do in its sleep, like a walk-to-trot transition over and over. I need to talk to the horse’s mind, not its feet.
An example of this from a recent clinic was with a sensitive and distracted horse that saw lunging as boring and troubling. It would mindlessly trot around and around when the whip was flicked at its hip or clucked to go forward. It moved forward when cued to go and stop when cued to stop. There was no more nuance to the conversation between horse and handler than that. There was no way to mentally engage with the horse.
This is a brief description of the type of work I did with Jonah.
I noticed Jonah was focused on where the other horses were. He had problems just standing quietly and was not waiting for me to ask him a question. So I began…..
I asked Jonah to direct his attention to his right using the lunge line. When that happened I asked him to yield his shoulders to his right and walk forward on the line the rope was directing.
Jonah wanted to trot. I blocked him and worked at the rhythm of the walk I had pictured in my mind. I slowed a walk that was too fast and sped up a walk that was too slow.
When I got 5 steps of the walk I wanted I asked Jonah to disengage his hindquarters 1 step while still walking forward. After another 3 steps, I asked Jonah to stop and back 2 steps then stop. Then forward 2 steps and back 3 steps with no stop. Then forward one step and stop. I waited 10 seconds.
Jonah was then asked to walk forward with the biggest walk he was capable of giving - almost trotting, but not. When I got the walk I wanted for 5 steps, I asked him to slow his walk to half a kilometre an hour for 4 steps. Then a working walk.
Half a lap at a working walk I asked for a leg yield for 3 steps, then a stop and back up for 3 steps, then a working trot.
The trot was maintained for a third of a lap before asking for another leg yield for 3 steps. Then the slowest walk Jonah could offer for a third of a lap. Then a stop.
While stopped I asked Jonah to move his left fore forward 1 step and stop. Then move it back 1 step. Then yield his shoulders 1 step to the right. Then I asked him to turn his neck (not his body) to look at me. Then I asked Jonah to turn his neck to look in the opposite direction to me.
This went on for about 10 minutes. I asked Jonah to change direction, perform a few walk-trot-walk transitions, and even do some canter work. But I tried to constantly engage with his mind with questions he had to think about how to answer. There was no pattern to the work.
At first, Jonah was being interrupted every few strides by my questions. But as his focus improved he began to ask me questions such as “Is this okay”, “What you do mean”, and “What’s next”. As this change evolved it became unnecessary to demand so much from him because his focus became strong and stayed strong. Then it became possible, and even easy, to work on his balance, impulsion, and rhythm.
You are probably a little steamed because I don’t describe the methods I used to present ideas to Jonah to do all those things while on the lunge. It’s different for every horse, and telling you how I did it wouldn’t help you. You can figure it out or come to clinics to be shown how to learn these skills. However, the methods don’t matter.
The thing that matters is that in some way you need to find a way to help your horse stay focused while lunging. It needs to become the other half of an alive and active conversation. When training, there is no point in lunging a horse if their feet and body are doing the work but their minds are on vacation.
From a clinic in Maine, USA several years ago. Maggie is directing Breezy’s thought to her right to prepare Breezy to yield her should to the right and start a circle to the left.