i have had him for about a year and was a stud when i bought him. i had him gelded right away and he has now calmed down quite a lot. the previous owner just jumped on and held on for dear life for about 20 minutes until he calmed down. can jump on now but wants to run like mad, very hard to hold back calms down after about 5 minutes then rides great. i think if i could lounge him things would be much better and he would have less energy when it is time to ride and less likley to bolt. PLEASE HELP
Answers:
I would ignore the comments on free lunging, because that is different than lounging on a line. Free lunging is fine, but I would not do it if the horse has a saddle and bridle on as it's not safe. If he chose to roll, he's break your saddle. Also, don't lunge off the bridle unless you really know what you are doing, and I would not do it if he has never lunged before. I just use a halter fitted tightly if I don't have a cavesson that fits. To teach a horse to lunge (I teach all of my horses to lounge before I ever get on them as it is a vital way to help expend extra energy and build muscle for the out of shape horse if they are not fit enough to be ridden) you need two people. If you are not great at lounging, you may want to practice first with a horse who knows how to lunge to tune your own skills up. But to teach your horse, have your helper walk next to your horse on the inside of the circle to prevent him from coming into you. You stand in the middle holding the lunge line and lunge whip. Do lots of down transitions- walk to halt about a million times while practicing voice commands (woah, walk, trot). Work on changing directions too. Have him stop and stay on the outside of the circle. I don't let my horses come into the center of the circle because that can create bad habits of trying to come in when working. You can turn him either with the whip or by turning his head and moving him away (I'm sure there are other ways to turn a horse around but that's just how I do it). Do the same thing in the other direction- lots of down transitions. You want to teach him to stop first so he's not dragging you all over the arena. If you can't get a helper, you can work on basically the same thing in hand. When walking, say walk, and do lots of halt transitions to get him to chill. If he doesn't stop the second you do, correct him by making him back up a few steps and then immediately walk off again. Keep doing this until he is watching your every move and when he sees you start to stop, he does too. Don't forget, with every transition you make, use voice commands. A horse that responds to voice commands on the lunge line is a lot easier to handle in my opinion. Any horse that is well trained to lunge is fine, but I think voice commands make it even easier. When he has mastered this in hand, you can start in introduce the trot but only a couple of steps at a time and then halt again. Do some more walk halt but occasionally put the trot in with the voice command. You don't want him to get overly excited. Since he was a stallion, there is a good chance he was shown in hand, so he may already be very good at all of this. If he is, just tune him up and refresh his memory and incorporate voice commands.
When you have him on the lunge line with your helper, if he already knows voice commands, all you have to do is teach him to stay on a circle. If you do have a round pen this is prefect because then he can't move farther out either. Just make sure that he's got down transitions very well so he's not taking off with you. Once you know he'll stop, let him move out and burn some energy.
Good Luck!
Its a 2 person job
one person has the lounge line and gives commands like walk-on and whoa
the other person leads the horse while you give commands
The best way to train a horse is through repetition
One thing that might help is at first...start ina n arena, just leading him on the line. After a few minutes, let him wander, but keep hold of the line, make sure that whenever he walks around he goes in a circle.
After a few days of this you can introduce the trot and canter, probably using a whip(not hitting!) to keep him out.
E-mail me for more help if this doesn't work.
Why not free school him. Find a secure place (a sand school is ideal) and let him run loose (ie. no lunge line or lead rope). encourage him on with your voice and walk towards him to speed him up, back off a bit to slow him up. If your horse is bolting with you when you are riding, you need to sort out his energy problems. Look at his diet and try and turn him out more to allow him to get rid of some of his excess energy. Good Luck
Most horse do not need to be trained to lunge...they have the basic idea in their head already. If you have a round pen or other closed area, this is the place to start. Put him in there and encourage him to run around you. If you don't have a round pen, that's okay too, it just makes it a bit more difficult.
Make sure have you the necessary equipment...lunge line, lunge whip, a good bridle and gloves. Start by taking the reins off the bridle. Then run the clip on the lunge line through one ring on the bit (this works best with a snaffle, obviously), over his poll, and clip it to the ring in the other side of the bridle. This is so if he pulls on the line, the bridle won't be pulled sideways.
Now stand in your arena, holding the lunge line (neatly folded) in one hand and the whip in the other. Let out several feet of line and ask your horse to move off by gently flicking the whip at him. Be prepared for some stupid behaviour - running, rearing, etc. Stay out of the way and keep the line taught, and just let him work it out. Most horses understand the whip thing very quickly, so you shouldn't have any problems with that.
If your horse is moving to the left, the lunge line should be in your left hand, whip in our right. The whip should be pointed towards your horse's haunches. If he starts to move in on the circle, point the whip at his shoulders and take a step towards him. For now, don't worry too much about voice commands - easier to do those after the horse has learned the basics.
Good luck!
Do you have a fenced ring to work in? If so, block off about half of it so you have a circle to work in (temporary fencing works well, you can also use jump pole and standards; think roundpen). Lead him around the circle and few times so he gets the idea then gradually loosen up the lounge so you have a couple feet between you. Start angling yourself so you are facing him and get the whip in your rear hand (so it is behind him). If he edges towards you, push him away with either your hand (if you are still close) or the whip (gently, just push with the handle or tip). Remember that you need to position yourself so that your body and whip are encouraging him to move forward. If you are angled so that he perceives you are in front of him, he won't be as willing to move forward. Think of it as angeling your body towards his shoulder and being at a right angle with his hip, not the other way around. Work him further and further away until you have a safe distance and he is walking forward on a circle. Practice on this circle until you both get the hang of it at the walk and then move on to the trot with a gentle cluck or a motion with the whip. If you find him abruptly trying to change direction you may be getting your body angle ahead of him. Anticipate where he will try to make the change and postion yourself at a stronger angle behind him (not directly behind! you need to stay roughly in the center still) so you can drive him forward.
You don't need a fenced area to do this in but it sure makes it easier.
i would start him out slowly. put the lunge line on normally and just walk him around the ring a couple of times like hes on a lead rope. then walk him in the desired circle area.If hes not to wild, then jog him around in that circle still in lead rope fashion. While jogging, loosen the lunge line and back away into the middle of the circle until your officially lunge lining. If this doesnt work, then stop and try again the next day till he gets used to the precedure.
When a horse first starts to lounge, you start them with a short line and slowly extend it as the horse catches on.
It sounds like the horse has control of the situation and not you. This is not a good sign. It sounds like the horse needs ground work, not necessarily lounging. You need to work with him and get him to respect you. And it doesn't sound like he respects you.
I would start by leading him around on the longe line in a small circle in the direction you want to start in. This way he gets the idea of what you are going to ask him to do. I would suggest you being on his left side since horses are more accustomed to being led on that side. Then stop and position yourself so that you're facing his left side. Let out a little of the longe line only about 3-4 feet. Cluck and ask him to walk raising the whip simultaneously. DO NOT attempt to crack the whip at this point. He could spook and kick you or take off. His first response may be to come into the center to you. If he does this just push him out by pushing on his neck with your hand holding the long line, while clucking and raising the whip. After a few times he should start to understand. Once you have him walking on the long line you can let out a little more slack. Once you feel comfortable you can coax him into a trot. If you have to swat the whip a little to get him to move on it's ok, but I wouldn鈥檛 suggest cracking it loudly yet. When you feel like he's got the hang of it in that direction I would immediately change to the other direction. Horses can tend to get too comfortable going in one direction and be difficult to change directions. This way you teach him to longe in both directions right away. Don鈥檛 over do it with him though. End on a good note. Once he has successfully longed both ways stop for the day. If you just be patient and stay consistent, longing him a little every day, he should pick up on it very quickly. Then you can teach him voice commands while longing-walk, trot, canter, reverse, ect. Good luck with him, and feel free to e-mail me if there's anything else I can help with.
P.S. I definatly agree that it's important that he understands and obeys to command whoa before you start longing. Also, before you ride him gain his respect on the ground, otherwise you could get hurt.
Utmost importance...BE CAREFULL! Lounging is not hard, just takes some time to understand what you are doing and getting the hang of it. Use a round pen if you can, it is safer that way. Online help www.downunderhorsemanship.com Clinton Anderson is awesome, he has a dvd on starting on the ground work. Also, Horse and Rider Magazine did an article on round pen work, check out their web site. Read and look at pictures and read and watch what you can. I do argee with one of the others, find a horse that knows how to lounge and get the hang of it.
Good luck!!
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