I Have a two year old filly who is a grand daughter of Invitaion Only, she was a late baby and just turned two in July. I’ve owned her for a year and we are experiencing problems when I ask for a lope on the lunge line. She will mainly just walk, no amount of kissing, clicking or whip cracking will change her mind about loping. She will trot a few strides and then stop and turn to me. She lopes out in the pasture on her own terms but never for me. Any suggestions? She’s not lame and has plenty of space to lope.
Has she been lunged before?
It sounds like she does not understand what you are asking her to do.
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Is somebody helping you? Filly doesn’t know what you want. Might still be growing and cantering a small circle is physically difficult as well. Probably a better idea to wait on lunging a just turned 2 year oll. And get some help with your lunging skills, more people get seriously hurt lunging then falling off, you can’t get out of the way and can get run over or kicked in the head unless you use the correct equipment and know how to teach the horse what you want.
Maybe the circle is too small? If that is not the case, then you might need the assistance of someone who can get behind her and chase her into it. Don’t let her turn and face you - chase her off, because even a moment of standing still (even if you are just pulling your hair or going arrgh) is a reward to her. The minute she turns make her move off. Also, two is rather young to have them working in circles. Minimize the lunge work to maybe one or two days a week and well under 30 minutes. Let her grow up.
Beware of splints.
She’s definitely in need of some education. Lunging shouldn’t be on her agenda right now. Teaching her to understand pressure and release is key. She doesn’t understand/respect driving pressure and that’s giving her sticky feet. Work in-hand with yielding her hind end and driving her forward in hand will help to lay the foundation for lunging.
What do you do when she stops and turns to you? Do you stop asking for the lope? I think you do, so you’ve taught her to ignore your forward cues and turn to you. If you are going to apply pressure to get a response, you have to keep the pressure on the horse until the horse responds correctly, or makes an attempt in the right direction. I suspect you still have some ground work to do until you proceed to loping on the lunge. Not sure why you would lunge a youngster anyway, if they are OK to work, it’s better to get on them than to have them go in tiny circle repeatedly.
First lesson every 2 year old of mine get…kiss means you must move forward, woah means the feet must stop.
I kiss til they are at the desired speed and then it’s up to them to be responsible and hold the speed or gait until I say otherwise.
if you teach your 2 year old go and woah, I am positive you then can add in obstacles like lunging, loading on the trailer, spooky objects etc and have no problem as long as you refer back to kiss and woah.
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I try not to teach too many verbal cues because I compete. I don’t want to be working on relaxing and softening my horse in the warm up pen and have the guy next to me kissing and smooching and have my horse get confused. Body language first.
Interesting. I’ve never had a horse I was riding tune me out and tune into someone’s else’s verbal cues.
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Me either, but I’ve seen plenty a horse react to someone cracking a lunge whip over there, or a trainer smooching from the rail to the horse in front of it, especially with novice riders. And I do have a horse that understands some verbal commands thanks to being in the show pen frequently and having to follow the announcers commands.
Oh, I have. Especially in a big rail class with a lot of riders and distractions. Might be ideal to keep the horse focused 100% of the time in a 20min rail class but I admit to failing that a few times trying to show the judge a relaxed ride with a loop in the reins when some noisy person appears right next to me and either loudly clucks or whoas. While mine won’t go or slow based on another riders verbalization, they will possibly lift their head and hesitate, sort of say “huh”? Particularly a Green horse and in a competitive class, that’s enough.
Found the Hunter Under Saddle easier to keep a horse fully focused then the Western classes since it’s easier to keep the horses attention with light contact and active leg riding in a random, large group in close quarters.
Have personally seen some veteran horses with novice riders slow or stop when somebody else yells whoa or Joe or No. The need to be considerate of others when riding in a group makes depending on verbal commands not such a good idea. Need to transfer those groundwork commands to the non verbal aids in the saddle.
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^^^ Not only this, but it’s not uncommon to see a rider slightly overmounted, or a green horse in the ring who is a bit tightly wound. There is nothing like having a horse blow up right in front of you or right behind you, and sometimes all it takes is a little kiss or cluck from someone within hearing range.
I was schooling X-C one day and my trainer said “whoa!” because he thought I was going to fast on the approach to a jump. Apparently my horse got the message before I did. lol.
