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Horse Behavior and Training

Horse wont stop when lunging

By:

nelle91

Date:

2011-Aug-19 at 08:36AM

Hi There,
I am having trouble to get my horse to stop/halt when he is being lunged either on a single line or long lining. Its a little easier to get him to stop when long lining as I can at least pull back on the lunge reins. He stops perfectly in the saddle and also on the ground with a simple 'whoa'. I've practised this a lot in my ground work so it works perfectly but he just wont stop on the lunge rein! He's actually a bit of a lazy horse and not very forward moving so its not like he wont slow down at all.
Help please?!
Narelle

Dennis 2011-Aug-19 at 02:29PM

Narell
Have you tried stepping quickly towards his head as if you were asking him to change directions then you move towards him at the sam time pul him towards you gently. You don;t want to indicate to the horse that he should come towards you, but you want him to face you. From that position you can have him change direction and go the other way, just stand there and start to relax. I come to you so you can lead him out of the round pen.

You don't have to step too far forward but when you move quickly towards his head you are removing the pressure that has been telling him to move forward. There is a fine balance where you should stand. It should be just behind the shoulder but not too far to the rear.
Using that position you can also control his speed by moving back slightly and clucking to increase the speed or move forward to slow his speed.
when you move forward to slow the horse you can at that point continue forward and he will either stop or reverse direction.

Let me know if this has been of some help to you

Cheers!

Miriam (Holland&Germany) 2011-Aug-19 at 03:50PM

Hi Narelle,
If you have the choice, please choose longlining, since this is much more natulral for the horse's spine (see longlining for the horse that has been single line lunged-lessons!).
Now that you have your horse on the longlines, use your body language to turn him, to invite him in and to stop him. When he's on the outside, you'll be driving him by staying just behind the surcingle-line from the centre of the pen. To invite him in, you go more "behind" the horse, then put slight pressure on the inside-line. When he comes in, you move before his balance-point to block the old direction and with this open the new direction.If the horse has difficulties to stop, you can use several turns to make him loose speed and indicate to him that you want him to slow down.What could help you get a good feeling for this, is longlining without lines, so only with your bodylanguage. When you do this, you don't have to worriy about the lines, so you can concentrate on your signals.
Good luck and keep us posted on your progress,
Miriam