Lungeing the Young Horse: Example #1
This is Dave Murphy and his young Arab filly Zena.
Zena, only a few short weeks ago was a pretty energetic(lets say) young lady who was a little bit out of control. Just by learning some of the basic principles of classical dressage, Dave has learned to apply them to this young horse. As you can see with only 10 or less sessions since we started, this horse has gone from being an uncontrollable young thing to now where she is safe in her pen, letting Dave catch her and coming out and going to work, just by applying a few simple principles.
You can also see why I wanted to film this horse. Here is a horse that has never had a saddle or bridle on and just by teaching it to lunge correctly, you can see how this horse is already working over its topline and stretching beautifully down through its back. We are setting up all the things necessary for this horse to continue growing. This is a two and a half year old horse that was living in a very small pen and getting either no exercise in the pen, or running up and down the pen or being turned out and being allowed to run until she got herself very very fit and very very crazy! I do say if you are raising young horses you should have plenty of pasture room for them and I mean a lot of pasture not a one acre thing in your backyard. If your going to raise them, horses need plenty of room.
If your like this gentleman who got a young horse and now thinks “now what happens, it’s not even fully grown” it is so important to be able to use these classical techniques to begin to get control of the young horse and also to teach it to move correctly. As you can see with Dave working the horse now in the film, he has had a little trouble there but he is going to send her on. That’s normal for a young horse and that’s also a good point because the horse is now wanting to stop when just a few weeks ago she would be running like a lunatic! So it’s very important to get to the point like where we have this mare now where she is stretching along and she is actually wanting to stop. Then we just send them on a little bit longer and that’s the one time during a lunge session that we ask a young horse to stop.
Most people get hung up on “Whoa”, making them stop and making them stand still, instead of what we really have to instill in them, as Dave here has found out, is that they will move ahead of the leg, which in this case is the lunge whip here and staying there until we can get them moving forward. As you can see in only a few weeks and a few sessions of working correctly, this baby is already on her own developing correctly. People argue the point “oh it’s unnatural”, but it isn’t unnatural for the horse to do this because we see every horse that is allowed to develop correctly, they will develop like this! But when people start either not working them sufficiently through, getting them to swing through the back or they truncate the movement with side reins or any other kind of apparatus hooked to the horse’s mouth, that is basically impeding the forward movement. The horse already begins it’s young life with the brakes on and that’s what we see in so much riding today is that people are riding with the brakes on(Just like in a car with tires and brakes burning out). They are basically telling the horse to stop and go at the same time and it simply can’t understand that without crunching its body into an unnatural frame. So once again, we can see how this young horse with just a few sessions has dramatically improved! The horseshoers and veterinarians that have worked with this horse are going to be very happy with Dave! Very nice! Now Dave can let her come to a walk and then ask her to “Whoa”.
9 responses to “Lungeing the Young Horse: Example #1”
Leave a Reply
debbie says: I though I saw some where on your web a short clip on how to properly use side reins but can’t find it now. Will you be posting videos on how to do that?
-
Kali says:
The new video “The Correct Use of Side Reins” is now up, hope this helps you!
Jana says: Hi there, this is great to see. I have been lunging my horse without saddle and gadgets because she responded so well and I like to see her move freely and stretch. But all the literature out there always talks about lunging with gear on, so I’ve been wondering if I’ve been doing something ‘wrong’. Your blog about rider’s hands was also very informative for me, I got immediate results when I applied some of those principals so thanks for making the advice and info available.
-
Sounds like your on the right track. Keep up the good work and have the faith that if you keep doing it right, getting your horse to stretch and work through the back, he will develop in time into a lovely horse with self carriage. Remember that it takes a year to establish a topline and two years to develop the topline to the point that the horse can begin work in collection. The problem with most people today is that they are in too big of a hurry.
Dave says: When I first started working with Will, Zena’s mother Zofia was supposed to be the project horse. We diverted our attention to Zena because she had developed some behavioral problems mostly of my own making. Basically, she was going bonkers whenever she left her corral. Arabians tend to be high energy horses. Although, I have had some very laid back ones. I treated Zena as an energy management project taking her across the street to the ridning club for a turnout and a chance to go bonkers. This became a self prepetuating problem. She thought she could go bonkers anytime she wanted to. Will correctly assessed the problem and we started using lunging to teach Zena to move away from the lung whip and go a circle with light contact. Early on, she was quite a handful on the lung line but with a few sessions she became more and more easy to handle. She is learning to relax and stretch. She is now a totally different horse. Recently, she went to an Arabian show and was reserve champion sport horse mare. She was the youngest horse there. She got an 8 for her trot from a judge that does lots of sport horse judging. I’m very proud of this score because the judge told me that she scores Arabians just as she does warmbloods. This success would not have been possible without Will’s help.
My wife gave her the barn mane of Zena the Warrior Princess because she was a fighter. We’ve dropped the warrior princess. Now it’s Zena Baby.
Joy says: Hi there. Great video! I would love more details on some of the in-hand work you mention doing with excitable horses such as this youngster and Perhaps, to work on controlling their emotions and submission before continuing to develop their fitness with lunging and riding.
Thank you!
Courtney says: Is it best to teach a horse to strech out first on the lunge? or for the saddle if they have been ridden for many years prior?
-
Hi,
A good rule of thumb is that if you can stretch the horse in the walk when you first get on it, that is, you don’t have to have any kind of fight with the horse about it, you can skip the lunging. if you can’t stretch the horse in the walk within a few minutes of mounting, you should lunge first as it means one of two things: the horse is not strong enough to lift it’s back or not relaxed enough to allow it to happen, as tension is the worst cause of horses getting sore backs.
If you stick to that rule you will save yourself and the horse a lot of discomfort.
Will
Theda says: Hi,
I was just wondering how exactly you got Zena to stretch down on the lunge. I have a very excited 8 yo mare who will calm down and stretch beautifully under saddle in the walk and is starting to do so on her own in the trot as well; but as soon as she is put on a lunge her hollows her back, swings her hindquarters out and crosses over her own legs when on the circle.
It didn’t seem to matter what gait, how fast, or how big the circle was, she always tensed up and swung out.
I’ve finally (after lots of work, some with a halter and no lunge whip) gotten her to relax to the extent that she will stop constantly swinging her hindquarters out, but she is still tense the entire time, and on any ‘bad day’ or if anything excites her she starts swinging her butt out and crossing her legs again.
I’m not sure if you’ve ever had a similar problem or can diagnose it without seeing her, but I thought I might ask, since all of the tips under saddle have worked wonders in her.
Thanks!!
P.S. She used to ‘go bonkers’ as soon as she was let out before as well, but now it seems to be only he lunging that gets her riled up. I’m not doing (to my knowledge..) anything that might give her cause to get excited or worried about lunging, although I know when she was first trained they used the lunge to “get her kicks out.” I feel as though that isn’t the problem, however, because when I first got her she would rear and buck as soon as you clipped the line to her halter or bridle, and now she’ll readily listen to any command you give her on the lunge.
I though I saw some where on your web a short clip on how to properly use side reins but can’t find it now. Will you be posting videos on how to do that?
The new video “The Correct Use of Side Reins” is now up, hope this helps you!
Hi there, this is great to see. I have been lunging my horse without saddle and gadgets because she responded so well and I like to see her move freely and stretch. But all the literature out there always talks about lunging with gear on, so I’ve been wondering if I’ve been doing something ‘wrong’. Your blog about rider’s hands was also very informative for me, I got immediate results when I applied some of those principals so thanks for making the advice and info available.
Sounds like your on the right track. Keep up the good work and have the faith that if you keep doing it right, getting your horse to stretch and work through the back, he will develop in time into a lovely horse with self carriage. Remember that it takes a year to establish a topline and two years to develop the topline to the point that the horse can begin work in collection. The problem with most people today is that they are in too big of a hurry.
When I first started working with Will, Zena’s mother Zofia was supposed to be the project horse. We diverted our attention to Zena because she had developed some behavioral problems mostly of my own making. Basically, she was going bonkers whenever she left her corral. Arabians tend to be high energy horses. Although, I have had some very laid back ones. I treated Zena as an energy management project taking her across the street to the ridning club for a turnout and a chance to go bonkers. This became a self prepetuating problem. She thought she could go bonkers anytime she wanted to. Will correctly assessed the problem and we started using lunging to teach Zena to move away from the lung whip and go a circle with light contact. Early on, she was quite a handful on the lung line but with a few sessions she became more and more easy to handle. She is learning to relax and stretch. She is now a totally different horse. Recently, she went to an Arabian show and was reserve champion sport horse mare. She was the youngest horse there. She got an 8 for her trot from a judge that does lots of sport horse judging. I’m very proud of this score because the judge told me that she scores Arabians just as she does warmbloods. This success would not have been possible without Will’s help.
My wife gave her the barn mane of Zena the Warrior Princess because she was a fighter. We’ve dropped the warrior princess. Now it’s Zena Baby.
Hi there. Great video! I would love more details on some of the in-hand work you mention doing with excitable horses such as this youngster and Perhaps, to work on controlling their emotions and submission before continuing to develop their fitness with lunging and riding.
Thank you!
Is it best to teach a horse to strech out first on the lunge? or for the saddle if they have been ridden for many years prior?
Hi,
A good rule of thumb is that if you can stretch the horse in the walk when you first get on it, that is, you don’t have to have any kind of fight with the horse about it, you can skip the lunging. if you can’t stretch the horse in the walk within a few minutes of mounting, you should lunge first as it means one of two things: the horse is not strong enough to lift it’s back or not relaxed enough to allow it to happen, as tension is the worst cause of horses getting sore backs.
If you stick to that rule you will save yourself and the horse a lot of discomfort.
Will
Hi,
I was just wondering how exactly you got Zena to stretch down on the lunge. I have a very excited 8 yo mare who will calm down and stretch beautifully under saddle in the walk and is starting to do so on her own in the trot as well; but as soon as she is put on a lunge her hollows her back, swings her hindquarters out and crosses over her own legs when on the circle.
It didn’t seem to matter what gait, how fast, or how big the circle was, she always tensed up and swung out.
I’ve finally (after lots of work, some with a halter and no lunge whip) gotten her to relax to the extent that she will stop constantly swinging her hindquarters out, but she is still tense the entire time, and on any ‘bad day’ or if anything excites her she starts swinging her butt out and crossing her legs again.
I’m not sure if you’ve ever had a similar problem or can diagnose it without seeing her, but I thought I might ask, since all of the tips under saddle have worked wonders in her.
Thanks!!
P.S. She used to ‘go bonkers’ as soon as she was let out before as well, but now it seems to be only he lunging that gets her riled up. I’m not doing (to my knowledge..) anything that might give her cause to get excited or worried about lunging, although I know when she was first trained they used the lunge to “get her kicks out.” I feel as though that isn’t the problem, however, because when I first got her she would rear and buck as soon as you clipped the line to her halter or bridle, and now she’ll readily listen to any command you give her on the lunge.