How To Lunge a Horse

When used correctly lungeing, sometimes known as longeing, is a very useful training tool. When lungeing a horse, the horse moves around the handler in a circle. The handler controls the horse by using aids that ask him to move faster or slower, bend on a circle or move closer to or farther away from you.

Aids include your voice and body language. By lungeing your horse, you are given the ability to watch him from the ground, so you can monitor his movement, his soundness and his natural frame. lungeing before a ride can decrease the inherent risk of riding a hot horse, therefore increasing your safety. However, lungeing incorrectly can be very dangerous for both you and your horse.

Equipment

1. Find an enclosed space for lungeing, preferably a ring or small enclosed pasture. Be sure that the footing is safe for your horse throughout the ring and that you can make a circle that is at least twenty meters in diameter.
2. Wear sturdy, comfortable boots and gloves. Do not wear spurs.
3. Use a lunge cavesson and brushing boots on the horse, even if the horse doesn’t normally brush. Use over-reach boot if the horse has a tendency to over-reach.
4. Prepare the lungeing rein, by folding it back and forward over itself, not by rolling it. Make sure it’s not twisted and is comfortable in your hand.
5. Practice using the lungeing rein and whip. until your are comfortable with them and can handle them nimbly. Any clumsiness will confuse and upset the horse.
6. Snap the lunge rein to the center ring of the cavesson.
7. Whips may only be used as an aid, never as a tool to harm, injure, or frighten the horse.

Position

1. Position yourself in the center of the ring, and, if you're lungeing to the left, hold the lunge rein in your left hand and your whip in your right hand. 
2. You should grasp the lungeline, with the excess folded back and forward within your hand in loops. You should be forming a triangle, with the horse's body, the lunge rein and the whip.
3. Carry the whip pointing slightly behind the horse and pointing down when not using it to give an aid. Keep your wrists, arms and shoulders relaxed and supple, the same as you would for riding.
4. Face the middle of the horse where the saddle or roller would go.

The Aids

1. Control the horse's speed and pace with voice aids or clicking your tongue, using commands such as “walk on”, “trot on”, “canter” and “whoa”. 
2. Ask for more forward action by bringing the lunge rein slightly forward and ‘squeezing’ the horse with the whip by bringing it up and closer to the hind quarters.
3. To slow the horse, bring the lunge rein back, let the whip point down and slightly away.
4. To stop the horse, ask the horse to slow and also point the whip in front of the horse. You can also do this to slow a horse if they refuse to slow down.
5. Control the rhythm of your horse's pace with your own feet. Keep your feet moving.
6. In the same way, you can control your horse's pace with your seat when riding; your horse will follow the pace of your feet.
7. Flick or crack the whip to back up your aids only when necessary. Be ready if the horse reacts, and wait for the horse to relax and listen to you again.
8. Send the horse out on the circle by asking for walk or "move out" and letting the lunge rein slip though your fingers.Important: Never Let the lunge rein get too slack or the horse may step on it and injure himself or you. When the horse is on the line you want, take up a contact. A twenty-meter circle is normal.
9. Keep the horse from turning in or falling in on the circle by pointing the whip at the horse’s shoulder.
10. To lunge the horse in the other direction (called "changing the rein"), first halt the horse. Take the lunge rein in your right hand and whip in your left. Raise the whip in front of the horse to block movement that way, and move the lunge line away from your body to invite the horse into that space. Wait until the horse has turned and then ask for walk.
11. When you are finished, halt the horse and walk towards the horse taking in the lunge rein as you go. Make sure you fold the rein rather than roll it to lessen the danger of the rein tightening around your hand if the horse takes off.

Tips

• Find a dependable, well-trained horse to practice on and an experienced horseperson to supervise you. Never mix an inexperience handler and an inexperienced horse.
• If necessary ask someone to walk the horse in a circle while you tell him to walk.
• Work on both reins (in both directions), for more or less the same time. Start with the horse’s favourite rein (the direction that the horse finds easiest.)
• If you find it easier you can hold the excess rein in your other hand with the whip. However this restricts your movements and is impossible in some more advanced types of lungeing, like using two reins.
• Lungeing has great training value beyond just letting the horse run in circles around you, especially if you are using a bitting rig. Try practicing changing gaits, such as having the horse walk, trot, walk, halt, walk, canter, trot, canter, etc., with no more than 1/2 circle between the changes in gait. You will be teaching the horse to be attentive and obedient, and will see him start to engage and come on the bit. You will be rewarded with an improved ride and better gait transitions when you are mounted.
• Some more advance lungeing includes: lungeing from a bridle with one or two reins, using training aids, doing pole work, and jumping on the lunge.

Warnings

• Handling horses carries inherit risk.
• This is as advanced and complex a training technique as riding. Do not try this with a horse you do not know or if you have no prior horse experience.
• If you wish, hold the gathered-up the lunge rein in your free hand, with all fingers outside the loops of the lunge rein.
• Don't let your horse act up. He may try to rear or buck. 
• Never, ever, allow the lunge line to become wrapped around any part of your body, including your fingers, hand(s), waist, neck or feet. People have been injured and actually even killed this way while lungeing.
• Wear gloves and a helmet whenever you lunge a horse. There is always the danger that your horse may try to rip the line out of your hands or pull you over.
• Never lunge your horse on too small of a circle. It puts too much stress on his joints and he could be injured.
• Never lunge a lame horse, except to assess lameness under the supervision of a vet.
• Lungeing is a very constructive way of exercising a horse, but, under certain circumstances, such as if your horse is moving in an unusual way due to a lameness, he could be injured.
• Tapping the horse with the lash of the whip or cracking the whip takes skill and practice. Neither should be necessary with a dependable horse and supervision.
• Always carry a whip when lungeing. It is the easiest way to stop the horse coming in on the circle. It also is an aid to use in the prevention of being kicked.
• Never lunge your horse in only one direction. Lungeing is quite stressful to his joints, and lungeing in only one direction is a sure-fire way to make your horse go lame.

Things You'll Need

• An experienced trainer to show you how to do this safely.
• A dependable, experienced horse.
• A lunge line, at least 20 meters in length
• A lungeing cavesson or a halter.
• A lunge whip
• A safe, level enclosed space
• Boots, gloves and helmet.