Alternatives to lunging?

[schrkr]

Just a thought, is your horse by himself? Can he be pastured with other horses?

I’ve seen a lot of horses calm down just from having the opportunity to play with other horses. If he’s by himself with minimal interaction - he could view your lunging as “play time”.

Remember horses are social creatures and from my experience geldings like to play.

If it’s a situation where you could have him with another gelding that gets along with him - you may find work time to be a lot more functional.

Another thought - what I have done with horses that need to move prior to riding or work - is allow “play time” in the arena when they are loose. They still have to respond to my body’s aids for turning and moving but I generally get them started then just stand in the arena and let them move without driving them and if I feel they are getting out of control I turn them before they get going too fast - multiple turns if I have to. Then they get to play, but once I put the lead line/lunge line on it’s work time and no Shenanigans.

After free time I’ll ask for the head to come down and they start out at a walk - yielding their haunches in a small circle around me with contact. I will increase the circle to regular lunging size as they are able to keep their head turned slightly to me and they are relaxed with head down. Contact on the lunge is key here. If they amp up - make the circle smaller and ask for haunches to move to the outside (horse slightly facing you) - this will help him lower his head.

Working with hot horses I’ve found the Key to getting a horse to relax on the lunge is getting their head at or below the level of their withers.

As far as equipment goes - A lunging caveson is great but you can use a rope halter or a nylon halter with a stud chain. The nylon halters by themselves don’t give much leverage if you need it.

Hope this helps.

[mvp]

OP, I’m glad you asked your question here.

One of the best things I have gotten from WesternWorld is a different approach (or several) to getting a horse ready to ride.

I come from EnglishWorld and I can remember being taught basic horsemanship in the Pre-Warmblood Invasion years. Then, there were a lot of TBs around and I think that invited strategies like your trainer’s: Give 'em a chance to be silly before you get on.

I think we can do better-- perhaps even with young, hot horses. I like the “tie them and let them wait” idea the best because it’s so easy on the body (of man and beast). But any of the other ones that require that the horse submit his mind to you (via submitting his body) is good.

FWIW, if your horse reached up and took down some poles with his teach, he wasn’t afraid of the obstacle.

I ride a horse who can be a little bit of a jerk. He puts his ears back first and asks questions later. We know each other well enough that I’m pretty sure I won’t come off, even if I get on him that way. As far as I’m concerned, however, he’s not ready to be ridden if he’s snarling at me. I fix that on the ground somehow so that I don’t have to fix it under saddle.

Get a great big repertoire of ways to read and interpret a horse’s mind on the ground and your riding life will be much better.

[Ridinwyoming]

Timely post. I not a big fan of lunging and also looking for ways to help my horse get out the sillies before riding.

Recently I found what works for us is to warm him up on the lunge at the walk and trot with lots of transitions on a smaller circle to keep him under control. Then I turn him loose to canter/gallop with no help from me. It’s usually a few laps and he is done. I feel that with the trotting his muscles are warmed up to (hopefully) avoid injuries from running around. He comes back to me when he is done. I’m lucky he calms down quickly so I can tack him up and have a good ride with his attention on me.

[pAin_t_Misbehavin]

[QUOTE=Flash44;7286299]
I have a mare that has not been ridden in 7 months. Saturday I spun her around on the lungeline for a few minutes for a soundness check, and she was feeling good and playful despite having been turned out all day. Yesterday I tied her up for 30 minutes, tacked her up, and put her back on the lunge line. She was calm and quiet, so I got on her after about 5 minutes of jogging on the lunge line. Rode her for about 20 minutes with no problems and a great attitude.[/QUOTE]

As mvp states in her post below, tying a horse to get it quiet is certainly 180 degrees from hunterworld mindset. But I’ll give it a try! Let me ask you this, though: what do you do if the horse starts pawing? Or pulling? Or, I don’t know, finding a way to screw with his tack? Conjure ties, that’s not a problem. But I can envision him doing crap that I don’t want him to do while he’s tied. Do you ignore this? Reprimand?

[QUOTE=schrkr;7286679]Just a thought, is your horse by himself? Can he be pastured with other horses?
.[/QUOTE]

Yes, no, and I agree this may be part of the problem. Conjure shares a fenceline with other horses but has to be pastured alone. I have a pony with a bad knee and a 31 yr old, neither of whom can be run around. And Conjure is quite aggressive with other horses in turnout.

To answer other questions about management issues - he’s turned out in 1.5 acres 24/7 with free access to his stall. He gets 1 lb of no-starch feed and one or two flakes of coastal bermuda twice a day. Oh, and 1 oz of NextLevel joint fluid once a day. The only thing that’s changed in the past three years is the frequency of his work and the joint supplement.

Finally, about ground driving - it’s something I’ve always wanted to try. Unfortunately, I just don’t have the time right now to learn a new discipline and teach it to my horse. But thanks for the suggestions.

[QUOTE=mvp;7286892]OP, I’m glad you asked your question here.

One of the best things I have gotten from WesternWorld is a different approach (or several) to getting a horse ready to ride.

I come from EnglishWorld and I can remember being taught basic horsemanship in the Pre-Warmblood Invasion years. Then, there were a lot of TBs around and I think that invited strategies like your trainer’s: Give 'em a chance to be silly before you get on.

I think we can do better-- perhaps even with young, hot horses. I like the “tie them and let them wait” idea the best because it’s so easy on the body (of man and beast). But any of the other ones that require that the horse submit his mind to you (via submitting his body) is good.

FWIW, if your horse reached up and took down some poles with his teach, he wasn’t afraid of the obstacle.

I ride a horse who can be a little bit of a jerk. He puts his ears back first and asks questions later. We know each other well enough that I’m pretty sure I won’t come off, even if I get on him that way. As far as I’m concerned, however, he’s not ready to be ridden if he’s snarling at me. I fix that on the ground somehow so that I don’t have to fix it under saddle.

Get a great big repertoire of ways to read and interpret a horse’s mind on the ground and your riding life will be much better.[/QUOTE]

Yes, I first noticed the difference in philosophy when I started watching some of Buck Brannaman’s work. I was stunned to hear him say, speaking of groundwork, that you might be able to get the same result on a lunge but he doubted it. So that’s why I thought I’d post my question here.

My trainer, although she has thirty years experience in the hunters, is very open-minded and studied with a trainer who places a lot of emphasis on groundwork and other less conventional methods. I think she’ll be very supportive of my efforts to find an alternative to lunging Conjure.

I’ll let y’all know how we progress. Thanks!

[TheHunterKid90]

I wouldn’t worry about him jumping about when he’s tied. Especially if it is a pulley system. My three year old stud had the weekend off and I tied him while I rode a gelding. He did airs above the ground. Struck out, half heatedly loped a circle and after about fifteen minutes, he fell asleep. :lol: I suppose it’s possible for them to get hurt but highly unlikely. We tie 120 horses a week and haven’t had an injury.

[beowulf]

Ground driving isn’t a new discipline. As long as you can lunge, you can ground drive!

[mvp]

[QUOTE=pAin’t_Misbehavin’;7287198]
Let me ask you this, though: what do you do if the horse starts pawing? Or pulling? Or, I don’t know, finding a way to screw with his tack? Conjure ties, that’s not a problem. But I can envision him doing crap that I don’t want him to do while he’s tied. Do you ignore this? Reprimand?[/QUOTE]

Well, the horse (even/especially the expensive, fit show horse) needs to know how to tie, ranch style. That means that when he’s tied, he’s in park. He knows it. He almost never questions it.

The short answer to your question is, yes: You ignore or reprimand as works for the horse. Cowboy friend who ties a bunch of his to the wall in his arena will pause his work with another horse to throw a dirt clod at a tied one who’s pawing. Or, if mounted, he might swing a rope at that horse on his way by.

The long answer is that you have to decide that you want to bother to teach a horse to tie. A big difference between most people in EnglishWorld and in WesternWorld revolves around their views of tying. After that, teaching a horse to tie in the sense that he’ll be very patient, is simple. But you have to commit to doing it.

A clever, gets-enough-TO horse like yours might really, really benefit from being taught to tie. Think of it as a genius who needs to learn to meditate in order to manage is great mind most happily.

The even longer (and relevant answer) is that you’ll have to teach him to tie before you can expect that 30 minutes of tying before and after a ride to do their job. He won’t learn to manage his expectations and “just chill” while tied…… if he’s having an issue with being tied and left there. And taking a horse down from a tying situation before he has chilled is very counterproductive.

[re-runs]

There is a technique of the Vaqueros that taught horses to teach themselves to tie by tying them from high above. They would find themselves a big tree with a long sturdy branch and tie their horses to the branch, sometimes three across, anchoring them from above so that the horses would have a long lead, short enough so they couldn`t get into trouble, distanced enough so that they could not touch. The Vaqueros would then sit in the shade, play cards or braiding rawhide while their horses found the end of the lead by stepping around and under, all the while disengaging their hind and forequarters and giving to the rope that they were so expertly and purposefully tied from.

In a couple of hours, the horses had learned by themselves to tie and respect the end of the rope and also learned to let go of their braces and stand patiently.

Buck Brannaman talks about this subject in one of his videos.

[pAin_t_Misbehavin]

[QUOTE=mvp;7288273]

A clever, gets-enough-TO horse like yours might really, really benefit from being taught to tie. Think of it as a genius who needs to learn to meditate in order to manage is great mind most happily.[/QUOTE]

Thanks, mvp. That’s a good way to think of it.

re-runs - I don’t think I have anywhere on the farm I can really tie him high (above the level of his shoulder). No trees. No fences over four feet high. Oh, wait - I do have a tie ring on the barn wall in his pasture at the right level. Think that would work?

[mvp]

[QUOTE=pAin’t_Misbehavin’;7288962]
Thanks, mvp. That’s a good way to think of it.

re-runs - I don’t think I have anywhere on the farm I can really tie him high (above the level of his shoulder). No trees. No fences over four feet high. Oh, wait - I do have a tie ring on the barn wall in his pasture at the right level. Think that would work?[/QUOTE]

It won’t be quite as good as tying him to a branch above or even to a pole with a rotating ring at the top.

But tying a horse at the level of his eye is pretty good. It’s safe. The idea-- and all this talk about “taking braces out” of a horse-- is to set up a situation where pulling on a rope isn’t comfortable, fun or effective.

Tying them high takes away lots of the strength a horse could put into pulling back or nodding his head and neck in a tantrum.

Also, I was taught that a horse’s neck muscles near the base on the top aren’t strong enough to take a really bad panic and pull back if the horse is tied low. I don’t know if this is true. I haven’t seen a horse do obvious muscle damage to his neck pulling back, but I haven’t tied them particularly low, either.

[Flash44]

[QUOTE=pAin’t_Misbehavin’;7287198]
As mvp states in her post below, tying a horse to get it quiet is certainly 180 degrees from hunterworld mindset. But I’ll give it a try! Let me ask you this, though: what do you do if the horse starts pawing? Or pulling? Or, I don’t know, finding a way to screw with his tack? Conjure ties, that’s not a problem. But I can envision him doing crap that I don’t want him to do while he’s tied. Do you ignore this? Reprimand?

I’ll let y’all know how we progress. Thanks!:)[/QUOTE]

You want the horse to relax when tied, so you want to avoid any reprimanding. I begin by tying in the stall where the horse is already relaxed and happy. Once they learn to stand quietly in the stall for an hour, I’ll move to another similarly familiar place and have them tie to a fence post. I usually just leave them tied for a few minutes at first, and progress with length of time. A key factor is untying them when they are standing quietly, not pawing or fussing. And you need to stick around to monitor what is going on. I try not to do anything stressful when they are first learning to tie - I make sure other horses are close by so they don’t get anxious. I use a blocker tie ring so if the horse really panics and pulls back, he doesn’t get into trouble. Have yet to have one really pull back on it, though. I think that once they figure out it’s hard work to pull back, they choose to stand.

[pAin_t_Misbehavin]

[QUOTE=Flash44;7297148]
You want the horse to relax when tied, so you want to avoid any reprimanding. I begin by tying in the stall where the horse is already relaxed and happy. Once they learn to stand quietly in the stall for an hour, I’ll move to another similarly familiar place and have them tie to a fence post. I usually just leave them tied for a few minutes at first, and progress with length of time. A key factor is untying them when they are standing quietly, not pawing or fussing. And you need to stick around to monitor what is going on. I try not to do anything stressful when they are first learning to tie - I make sure other horses are close by so they don’t get anxious. I use a blocker tie ring so if the horse really panics and pulls back, he doesn’t get into trouble. Have yet to have one really pull back on it, though. I think that once they figure out it’s hard work to pull back, they choose to stand.[/QUOTE]

Thanks, Flash. I like the idea of using the blocker tie ring. And starting with just a few minutes and waiting till he’s quiet to release. I could do that!:yes:

So do you also start by tying above the level of the shoulder?

[merrygoround]

Trainer’s philosophy is: let’s put him on the lunge to see if there’s silliness in there. If so, let’s get it out before we sit upon him. She doesn’t chase him around or encourage silliness - if he responds to her nicely then she might only lunge five minutes or less. If he takes off cantering or bucking though, she’ll let him get it out of his system (within reason).

Your horse should by now to be advanced enough to be longed in a cavesson over a bridle. Misbehavior brings a sharp snap of the cavesson. Bucking is a misbehavior, as is racing around. It is discouraged immediately. Of necessary
the circle is made smaller and smaller to racing is impossible. Otherwise the circle should be at least 20 meters in diameter,

Longeing properly is an art and a discipline, and has nothing to do with allowing the horse to blow off steam. :rolleyes: USDF, and the USPC both have booklets that discuss techniques and equipment. And they are just as apropo for Western as they are for English.