# Slow down on lunge line



## Chasin Ponies (Dec 25, 2013)

Let her get her jollies out on the lunge line for a while before you actually start asking for specific work. When she first gets out she'll be like a little kid with too much energy to concentrate. Once she settles down, try this method I wrote for a clinic on lunging for a 4-H club:

One of the main purposes of the whip is to accent your cues/body language and your horse will learn to watch you. Watch the eye and especially the ears-the ear will tip towards you when he is really paying attention to you.When he starts to understand the basics try this: 
-Put him in the "triangle" 
-Walk slowly in a small circle, remember the horse is supposed to be doing the work.
- To add speed: the whip comes up and closer to his rear and your shoulders square to the _rear haunches_. 
-To maintain, slightly move whip down & back to tell him he 
is fine. - 
-To slow down or stop-_lower both hands_ and slightly square your shoulders to his _forehand_. -
-For whoa, lower both hands almost completely. 
-Stroll in a relaxed way in a small circle while lunging.

-Use voice commands and say them _long, low and clear_. Horse listen to low pitch voices not high squeaky ones. (I always tell my students- put away that little girl voice!) You can also use clucks for the trot and kiss noises for the canter.
-Try not to crack the whip constantly-the horse quickly learns to ignore it and it makes you look ignorant. 

Remember to get in the habit of ALWAYS carrying a lunge whip not only to accent your body language but for your own safety. Horses can be feeling a little too good, cut the circle and kick you without meaning to hurt you.

Just remember that body language will become the key!


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## Saddlebag (Jan 17, 2011)

Try looking at your feet with the tip of the whip touching the ground beside or behind you. As the horse circles, pass the lunge line behind you. Often a horse will stop and that's ok. Just turn as ask it to walk, not with voice but a small movement of the whip.


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

has she been trained to lunge? does she have a chance to get her ya-yas out? is she turned out enough to not be all pent up when you put her on the line?

if she has had some chances to get the energy out, and it's reasonable to expect her to be able to move and respond with some direction, then, ask her to move out, on the circle, and ask her to walk. if she trots, put a jiggle down the line. if she keeps going, or speeds up, put a big jiggle down the line, and if that doesn't make her slow or stop, pick up the line and pull her head inward, and MAKE her stop. get her attention, then ask slowly and calmly for her to walk on. if she speeds up, ask with a small , then big jiggle, then shut her down and ask again. soon she will realize that if she trots, she gets shut down, but if she walks, all is calm and easy.


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## .Delete. (Jan 7, 2008)

I agree with Tiny. Lunge her until she is tired enough to slow down. From your post it almost sounds like her going fast makes YOU anxious, which in turn could make her anxious. Horses read body language we don't even know we are doing. 

I'd say let her run around till she doesn't want to anymore.


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

I didn't mean to say lunge her until she is tired. what I meant was not to try and expect her to be slow if she has a lot of crazy pent up energy. 
you don't want to be trying to "train" her to be slow when it's really difficult for her to not be slow.

what I meant was to not be doing a lot of trying to slow her down ineffectually, but to ask , ask a bit more, then shut her down. get her attention, THEN ask again.

if she is just running through your asking, then don't go on asking that way. get her attention, THEN ask. when her mind goes out into "RUN!", then stop that, get her mind, and start again. that was my point.


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## .Delete. (Jan 7, 2008)

tinyliny said:


> if she has had some chances to get the energy out, and it's reasonable to expect her to be able to move and respond with some direction, then, ask her to move out, on the circle


I'm sorry, I misinterpreted what you meant.

I still think letting her get her energy and nervousness out wouldn't hurt.


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## equitate (Dec 14, 2012)

You have to start all over in the training of the horse, do NOT work her until she slows down, that is cruel and horrid for the legs. She does not know the difference, just most people just put the horse on a line and run them...Likely the horse has simply been chased around (in a round pen), so it only know to flee.

Start with a small circle, small enough to sustain walk. You can use the wall to stop the horse by walking toward a wall, THEN saying 'whoa; or you can do the same thing with an assistant. IF the horse trots at any point, stop it, restart in walk,then trot (OR use the wall to stop the horse if absolutely necessary. They learn fairly quickly to listen. When asking the horse to calm also use a 'brrrrr' sound/like gargling, it helps. There is almost no need for voice commands (and they are added AFTER the behavior initially...ie touch with whip, when horse IS trotting, add the behavior happens). No whip cracking/etc. Have the horse slightly positioned inward, it protects against the possibility of being kicked.

For sure, there is a handler methodology separate from what to do with the horse: try to keep the horse in the 'triangle' (your chest points at the horse, line hand toward the head (with a bended elbow) and whip hand toward the croup. (Lifted whip means go, lowering whip means slow or stop). Initially, stay on one spot, keep the circle the same size, horse moves away from you. Lunging is like riding in the way the arms are held (bended elbows/upper arms vertical/thumbs up/etc), there must be a light/steady connection (to the caveson, never a bit), vibrations allow half halts.


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

equitate said:


> Lunging is like riding in the way the arms are held (bended elbows/upper arms vertical/thumbs up/etc), there must be a light/steady connection (to the caveson, never a bit), vibrations allow half halts.



this is so true. I had a couple of lunging lessons from a woman who was a master. she told me, "hold the line exactly as you hold the reins, and keep a similar feel to it" . I even hold my body similarly to how I would, say, going into a half halt corresponding to asking the horse to gather and slow down.. it helps a lot!


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## MinervaELS (Mar 4, 2014)

I have a 6 year old mare that sounds a lot like yours, StephK. My trainer and I tried a lot of things but she just liked to GO in the round pen, right away, and this ended up translating to under saddle as well. When asked for a canter, she would offer a hand gallop. We tried all sorts of things but it tended to be that or nothing.

A few weeks ago my trainer got fed up with it and did as .Delete. said. She took her to the round pen and had her run for an hour, then let her cool down and tried asking for a canter. She was a little slower, but still much too fast. After that, she began long lining her every day. She was worked HARD and, after a few days of this, she cantered when asked. It was amazing how you could HEAR the difference in her gait once she offered a proper canter instead of a hand gallop. Since then she has been getting progressively better, slowing down, and even did something of a Western lope in the past few days (which I know she was taught previously before being allowed to sit).

My trainer told me to keep several things in mind. First, if she wants to run bats--t crazy as soon as she gets into the round pen, let her. It's just a combination of energy and nerves (she is fairly nervous) and doing it helps her settle into work. She said that eventually my mare will get to the point where she doesn't want to do that anymore. Sure enough, she started trotting instead of running and in the last week or so she will simply move out at the walk when we start lunging and wait until I ask her to speed up. 

Second, my trainer reminded me that I can make her work a heck of a lot harder when I'm on the ground and, since she is young, she NEEDS to be given a good ground workout several days a week. She taught me to long line and I have been doing that with her every day (not riding at the moment) in order to improve this. She is praised for cantering like a sane creature and we do lots of downward transitions to the trot, which she used to get too worked up to listen to. She no longer runs in the round pen and, as it turns out, she has quite a nice canter when she isn't so energetic and anxious. I plan to continue with groundwork 2-3 days a week since she clearly needs it at this point in order to keep from regressing to ermagerdRUN mode. :lol:

Anyway, that was longer than I intended but that's how we've been handling my mare's similar issues. I hope it helps, or gives you some ideas!


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## .Delete. (Jan 7, 2008)

MinervaELS said:


> A few weeks ago my trainer got fed up with it and did as .Delete. said. She took her to the round pen and had her run for an hour, then let her cool down and tried asking for a canter. She was a little slower, but still much too fast. After that, she began long lining her every day. She was worked HARD and, after a few days of this, she cantered when asked. It was amazing how you could HEAR the difference in her gait once she offered a proper canter instead of a hand gallop. Since then she has been getting progressively better, slowing down, and even did something of a Western lope in the past few days (which I know she was taught previously before being allowed to sit).


Exactly! 

I'm not saying let her run around till she is crippled. Crippling a horse by purely lunging takes a lot of freaking lunging over long periods of time. (depending on the confirmation ofcourse). 

She sounds like she /wants/ to run. So why not let her? It quite literally won't hurt anything to let her get all that energy out. It's never fun to work with a fresh and anxious horse. It might actually benefit you to let her exhaust all that anxiety. 

You don't have to run her full out every time, you can even only let her do it once. I would be more inclined to let her run herself out THEN see how she reacts on the lunge line, than fight a pent up horse.


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## Ian McDonald (Aug 24, 2011)

In addition to what others have said, frequent transitions will break down a horse's momentum and help them to _choose_ to walk. I don't think of _making_ one stop but instead I use the impulsion that's already there (even if it's excessive) to channel into other maneuvers like changes of rein through the circle, turns on the haunches/rollbacks, rein-backs, and shoulder-in if it's safe to get close enough to the horse. Keep changing the program, giving her a chance to get with your idea and pretty soon it'll take no more effort to transition a gait downward than upward. It's not about expending her physical energy, it's about encouraging mental engagement with you as the handler. But you're right not to want her to just run off and ignore you. That's just what she'll do when you ride her too! I personally, don't like a longe line to ever be tight. If it's tight, the horse is not carrying herself. She's putting weight on the reins! Or as the dressage people say, finding her fifth leg by leaning on the rider's hand. The line may _get_ tight at times, it's very difficult to keep it loose 100% of a time on a green horse. Point is, if it does get tight I'm not leaving it that way and just allowing the horse to run off heavy on the reins. I'm going to do something to fix it! The good news is, once she discovers that it's easier to move on a loose line (because she's carrying herself) she'll start to do it more independently. This should be the real goal of longeing - NOT to tire a horse out!


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## frlsgirl (Aug 6, 2013)

I had, and sometimes still have, this problem with my 6 year old mare. Here is what I do: I do not punish forward, however, when she wants to slow down, I won't let her. That's really the only safe way to regain control over her. This means that I might end up lunging her for 30 minutes. Once she drops her head, and starts licking and chewing I know that the balance of power has shifted back to me, at which point I let her walk for a few minutes before the real lunging begins. From there it's just learning to associate verbal cues with different gaits. I cluck and urge her forward with the lunge whip while telling her "teeerot" and I cluck and urge her forward with the lunge whip while telling her "canter" - now I only have to say trot or canter and she knows what to do.


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## stephk (Oct 3, 2011)

*Thank you*

I just wanted to say thank you to all who responded!! All your advise is very helpful. She is coming along well, really starting to get the "whoa" command when on the lunge line (she had NO idea what that meant!). Still hard for her to just walk but she is getting better


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## Kayty (Sep 8, 2009)

I would not and will not EVER allow a horse to simply run around and be a brat on the end of a line just to burn off some steam. They can do that in a paddock when they're not attached to a human.

I lunge how I ride and I expect my horse to behave on the lunge as it would under saddle. If it bucks on the lunge there's a good chance it'll buck under saddle. 
By allowing a horse to run until it's tired in a circle, you're just making it fitter, causing soreness issues for later on and not doing any positive training what so ever. You are teaching your horse that while it is attached to you or under your control, it can do what it likes.

Equitate could not have explained any better.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Saddlebag (Jan 17, 2011)

Not everyone teaches a horse how to lunge. I rode for many years before learning how to lunge and even then did it with one horse only, a new horse just to get a sense of him.


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## megs93 (Aug 21, 2014)

When my mare gets a bit speedy on the lunge, I lower the lunging whip and give her a gentle half-halt. The half-halt brings their attention back to you so maybe if your horse is speeding up from being excited this could help?


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