Good morning this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and we have been introducing you to our new horse in training, Bailador!

This is about the fifth time I’ve lunged him. He is used to having his head tied down and would brace upward and tighten. This is a horse that used to spook at every little sound and would jump out of his skin, and like so many other horses today is only half trained. If everything is perfect, this horse will kind of go along okay but as soon as something goes wrong he was ready to jump out of his skin and buck. After only a few days, he is already starting to relax and stretch into the contact. Notice how long I have the side reins on this horse, just like we have shown you in other videos. It is very normal for a horse to try and canter like this rather than trot correctly.

When we first began him on the lunge line he would go around with his hind legs out behind him and also have a lot of pressure on the bridle upwards and had never learned how to relax and stretch into the contact. We see now after only a few days how nicely he is reaching into the contact of the bridle. You will never know if the horse’s back is working correctly if you put things on the horse that tie the horse’s head down. If you tie the horse’s head down, he may look to the uninitiated like he is doing something correct, but the reality is when you tie the horse’s head down in that manner it will actually stop the back end from coming through. If you do anything to shorten the horse’s neck, like tighten the side reins etc., we can pull his head over but we won’t get the back end to come through and we will never be sure that it is working correctly. When we work in long side reins, and the horse stretches in and we’ve done everything correctly, we know the horse is working over it’s back. It won’t stretch into that contact unless it is.

Now like many horses, he is wanting to give us a canter instead of a trot. I don’t try to immediately slam him back, I work him forward, a little bit of reverse psychology. For example, if he gives me a canter that I don’t want, I’m not going to immediately jerk his mouth and bring him back I am going to send him on in the canter for a little bit, so he knows that it is not getting him out of anything. Then I ask for a trot and look how easy he makes that downward transition. I only started lunging him about 5 minutes before we started filming today! Last week when I would lunge him, it would take a better part of an hour to begin to stretch down into the contact and he never would really get into the zone. Yesterday was the first day that I felt like he would stay there consistently, as he is doing now. He is mostly consistent now all the way around the circle, which is what I am looking for.

Notice how the inside side rein is looser than the outside one. The correct length of side reins is: they should always be the same length and should never be so short that they tie the horse’s head down. When the horse bends, the inside side rein should be looser which tells me that I have taught the horse to move into the outside rein. Notice how deeply and evenly he is swinging the hind legs underneath the body now. Very nice! Now we want to reward him! We will know when our lunging is correct when it gets shorter and shorter each day. We want to make sure that when we lunge it is for control not to just wear the horse out. So many horsesI see today get fitter and fitter and fitter because people just chase them on the end of the lunge line instead of teaching them something and the lunging getting shorter and shorter. That is a good way to know, you should not be lunging your horse at home and finding that it’s taking longer and longer to work the horse down, on a regular basis it should be shorter and shorter. Like this horse, today it took five to ten minutes to get him there instead of an hour.

This is the first taping session of this horse and he will be with us till the first of the year, and we will get a good opportunity to see how he can change over that period of time. This is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and thank you for joining us!

Bailador classical foundation contact lunging San Diego horse training side reins training Will Faerber