# Riding in the round pen?



## Endiku (Dec 6, 2010)

What size is this round pen? We have a full sized 60x60 ft, so what I will be telling you is strictly based on the amount of room I have to work with. It will be much different if you only have a 30x30

The key to round pen work is utilizing it correctly. I actually do almost all of my prep and green work with horses in one, because it's well enclosed- there aren't corners for greenies to get 'stuck' in, and there's a lot of opportunity to get some real work in.

Why don't you try some tune-up work? Warm him up by doing two laps at a walk in either direction, paying attention to your position and to your horse's form. Keep him in light contact with the bit and ask him to adapt his body to the circle. Try to keep a perfect distance between you and the rail. 

For your trotting exercise, you could switch things up by asking him to make circles within a circle. Make one full circle around the pen, then ask him to make two smaller circles, almost like a figure eight. Pay attention to his form again, and ask him to stay loose and flexible during his turns. Repeat in either direction, and maybe throw in some walk-trot transitions at the beginning and end of the circles.

As far as canter work, if he's already well balanced and knows his leads, there isn't much else to can work on in the round pen. One thing that I enjoy doing though, is some 'hands-off' work. Simply urge him into a well rated canter, drop contact with the reins (as of it, let them go. If you're unsure about this, you can use a neckstrap.) and ride him with only your voice, seat, and legs. He may be suprised at first, but the lost contact with force your communication to get strong since he'll have to listen to you better. Try to keep him at the same speed, and throw in a few direction changes, or smaller circles. The circles will make you really depend on your other aids because you'll need to ride him off of pressure and release. It's really a great riding experience ^^

then ofcourse, there's always doing cones or maybe some bareback ridings...walk-canter transitions, sitting trot...the list is endless! xD


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## mls (Nov 28, 2006)

Depends on the size of the round pen. The smaller the pen, the less speed work you will want to do. Difficult to set up too many obstacles if you want to do just plain flat work. Just no where to go to avoid going over them.


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## egrogan (Jun 1, 2011)

Endiku said:


> What size is this round pen? We have a full sized 60x60 ft


This shows my ignorance of round pen work, but I believe it is "full sized", and it has to be at least 60x60, I know it's not smaller.

You gave lots of good suggestions for ways to make it an interesting and worthwhile ride for both of us. I'll try some of it out between now and the weekend (hopefully we'll have multiple days of nice weather) and let you know how it goes. Thanks for taking the time to make suggestions!


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## The Copper Kid (Oct 4, 2011)

I've ridden my horse in a round pen... mostly when I was starting him out. Work on the smaller things though. I typically work on backing, rolling his hind quarters, and a little neck reining (or trying to lol) The only thing you need to have in mind is that it isn't good to trot or lope continuously for an extended period of time. It is bad on their joints. When I trot or more we typically don't even complete a full lap. 

If you are looking for an exercise type session I would advise to stay in the arena... if you are looking for something that works on the communication with your horse than the round pen should be fine.


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## egrogan (Jun 1, 2011)

The Copper Kid said:


> The only thing you need to have in mind is that it isn't good to trot or lope continuously for an extended period of time. It is bad on their joints. When I trot or more we typically don't even complete a full lap.


Very helpful advice; thanks. That makes a lot of sense.


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## mls (Nov 28, 2006)

The Copper Kid said:


> The only thing you need to have in mind is that it isn't good to trot or lope continuously for an extended period of time. It is bad on their joints.


Hmm. When I lope my horse out, I go for at least 10 solid minutes to get him good and warmed up before I start working on roll backs, etc.

Watch any working horse warm up pen. They lope A.L.O.T.


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## The Copper Kid (Oct 4, 2011)

Loping in a round pen is not good for a horse...A continous tight circle at that speed and impact is bad for their joints. Sorry I didn't clarify but I warm up my horse in the arena than move to the pen to get him in a more focused state of mind. He knows the pen means it is school time  Maybe I'm being close minded on it, but personally I would never warm up my horse in a round pen. I have done ground work with him where he has trotted around a few times but if he starts to speed up I ask him to slow back down. I'm just a firm believer in the arena for anything more than ground work or working on communication. 

If the pen is a 60x60 (like stated before) than it isn't as bad but watching people warm up the horse in a pen smaller than that I don't like... But everyone has a different way of thinking and doing it. And I'm not here to condem them on it. Just to throw my ideas out there.


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## The Copper Kid (Oct 4, 2011)

Anytime!!  Living in western washington I fully understand wanting to take advantage of the sun lol!!!


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## Endiku (Dec 6, 2010)

I do not see a problem with loping your horse in a round pen. I mean, simple lunging or the common 'joining up' is more stressful on the joints than merely loping some circles for warm-up is. :3 not to mention high impact sports such as reining, cutting, etc.

Thirty minutes of straight loping in a 30x30 pen with a horse that's out of contition? No, ofcourse not. But if it is mixed up with trotting, and the direction is reversed every ten minutes or so, I really don't see it being terrible on the horse; especially since they don't round pen often.


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## crimson88 (Aug 29, 2009)

I agree, loping for an extended period of time is not good for horses no matter how "in condition" they are or how warmed up they are. It's not good. My friend rides in a round pen (I don't know the size but my guess is 60') only and I've seen her lope for 15-30 mins straight and almost all of her horses have ringbone/windpuffs and are all navicular. She's broken them all since they were young and there is no reason that can explain why they all end up lame after several months of training other than the fact how she rides them in a round pen at certain gaits (mainly loping) for two long. In my opinion running hard or for a long period of time in such a small circle is not good for any horse. I love round pens, they are useful training tools but you have to be careful.


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## Endiku (Dec 6, 2010)

We have a 16-17 year old OTTB who was broke at two years old, raced until last year, and is now training to become a low level hunter jumper and lesson horse. He ran hard for about thirteen years, and has ridden in the round pen with me atleast two or three times a week, building up from a one to two minute canter to a straight 10-15 minutes of varied canter work.

he hasn't had a single lame day in his life.

















same for our other horses who work in the round pen, as well as friend's horses. No lameness. This leads me to believe that there is most likely a different reason that her horses have gone lame. incorrect shodding, too young, not conditioned correctly, bad footing in her pen...the list can go on.


We arent saying to just let loose as a canter for twenty plus minutes every day. I recall only telling her that cantering a few circles to establish a better seat and aids would be a good idea if she wanted som variety.


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## egrogan (Jun 1, 2011)

I appreciate hearing all these differing opinions, as this is all new to me. In my case, this won't be a frequent activity, and what I'm taking away from the advice is that we should go slow and not overdo it at faster gaits. I think it will be a nice change of pace to allow us some fresh air, and to work on "fine tuning" our way of going at the walk and maybe trot. Though Izzy isn't young, she is rather unbalanced at the canter, so I'm thinking that's not something we want to push when we don't have enough space. Thanks everyone!


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## Saskia (Aug 26, 2009)

To me round yards are good for ground work, free lunging and working with inexperienced/young horse or riders, or doing some precision work that is better in a small space. Otherwise I don't see the point of riding in one. I mean pretty much any benefit you could gain from it could be better gained in a large area. Working in a circle I think is much more beneficial if you have to keep your horse in a circle without barriers holding them in. The whole no reins/loose contact is a great exercise I think, but is best when you actually have to do something with your horse, not just go around in circles. 

Also, due to the size of the round yard you pretty much generally have to stick to the outside, which means you could easily catch a loose toe or get banged up. Normally I rarely ride that close to a barrier. 

People say it is similar to lunging, which is true, but many people don't think lunging is that great for a horse. I'll lunge as necessary for training, but don't find it has much of a use outside of that. 

If the weather is good why don't you take the opportunity to go out riding? Explore the area, have some fun.


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## crimson88 (Aug 29, 2009)

Riding on a tight endless circle, such as riding in a round pen, puts stress onto the horses knees, hocks, stiffles, ect. and the longer the stress is applied will eventually wear at these major stress points aswell as other areas mainly on the horses legs. This becomes much harder on the horse when he is also not properly balanced or bending correctly which tends to happen when a horse is either out of shape, green or simply not being ridden properly. A lot depends on the horse's build and confromation too. Sometimes a horse won't land evenly on his hooves with each stride because of his build and this is worsened on a circle, therefore causing increased stress on his joints. There are a lot of factors, but I don't believe that a horse should work hard on an endless circle, It can become quite boring for the horse too. Egrogan, it sounds like you should have no problems or difficulties with what you are going to be doing.


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## egrogan (Jun 1, 2011)

Just wanted to report back on how it went today. It was a beautiful day, mid-50s and bright fall sunshine. We headed out and Izzy was really excited. She isn't ridden outside often and she thought this was just glorious; ears pricked, bright eyed, and a big bounce in her step. 

It quickly became obvious that our primary goal for our ride was getting her to pay attention to me when she was so excited. Cars, wind, falling leaves, all of these things were very interesting to her. She wasn't dangerous/out of control, just very stimulated by all the new sights and smells (she gets lots of turnout, but on the other side of the property- this was new scenery for her). In fact, there was a lot of shooting in the mid-distance, and that didn't seem to catch her attention at all- she was more interested in the leaves falling around us.

After I got her paying attention to me, the next big issue was tempo. She is usually a forward type (we like to call her a sporty Morgan  ) but she was borderline _too _quick today (i.e., I asked for a trot and she immediately wanted to canter and was hard to bring back down). So, we focused on walking, spiraling circles, direction changes through the circle, etc. The little, important things. I would say we probably rode for about 40 minutes. She worked up quite a sweat during that time and took awhile to cool out.

All in all, it was GREAT to get outside into the fresh air. Given all the concerns about putting too much strain on her legs, and the "rushy" way she was moving, I don't think this is something I will do regularly, but I did enjoy feeling the sun on my face today. 

Thanks again for all the advice and suggestions.


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## COWCHICK77 (Jun 21, 2010)

egrogan said:


> I appreciate hearing all these differing opinions, as this is all new to me. In my case, this won't be a frequent activity, and what I'm taking away from the advice is that we should go slow and not overdo it at faster gaits. I think it will be a nice change of pace to allow us some fresh air, and to work on "fine tuning" our way of going at the walk and maybe trot. Though Izzy isn't young, she is rather unbalanced at the canter, so I'm thinking that's not something we want to push when we don't have enough space. Thanks everyone!


If your just doing it for a short amount of time to take advantage of the weather and your horse isn't young, there should be no problem. I think some people don't realize it's not just loping in small circles for extended times- the footing is a huge factor in stressed joints, muscles, tendons and ligaments. Some people want to dump 15 dumptruck loads of sand into a pen thinking it is a good idea. Too deep of footing creates injuries. Other than that the other disadvantage to riding constantly in a round pen is that I find it makes a horse "sticky". With my colts as soon as I have a handle on them, usually less than 10 rides, they go outside or at least to an arena.


Also this is perfect for teaching balance! Your horse will have to learn how to balance himself on a small circle.

Have fun and enjoy the good weather!


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## jinxremoving (Apr 6, 2009)

Round pen? Perfect opportunity to ride without stirrups AND reins! Practice your balance and leg yielding at W/T/C if size permits. One of my best lessons was done in a round pen with the instructor in the middle with a lunge whip (no lunge line) while I went through all of the gaits, worked on my leg yielding and even worked on transitions and halting without reins. Was a very cool experience and brought a lot of self-awareness to myself as to how much I relied on the reins.


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