I’m trying to work with my gelding to improve his topline at the advice of my vet. When I lunge, my gelding tends to get really strung out at the trot. Were I riding my horse, I would half halt and encourage him to work from behind, and not become a giraffe.
Do you have any advice for encouraging a less strung out trot? I was considering side reins (done loosely) to discourage the llama neck, but I am open to other devices, or using no gadgetry at all.
Teach him to long line!
It’s actually possible to teach a horse to half halt on lunge line. When my coach was seriously competing, she injured her SI joint. None of her students at the time could keep her horses going the way she wanted so she did a lot of experimenting with lunging.
The only way this works however is if your horse is trained to stop when you step in front of him. So if your horse doesn’t know to stop when you step in front and turn your shoulders towards him, it won’t work.
Basically you move so you’re in line or slightly ahead of their shoulder. Step in front and towards them as if you’re going to ask to stop. As soon as they slow momentarily, remove the pressure by stepping back in middle of circle. Depending on how much your horse slows, you might have to ask them to move forward again after. I have found this to be an easy way to help balance horse without disrupting the flow too much.
I think I’d need someone to teach me how to long line first! :lol:
Side reins are useful if set correctly, as are Vienna reins. For a horse that runs on the longe, the person doing the handling must learn how to give a series of ‘arrets’ on the bridle side, a gentle vibrating of the line, to slow down the front end, while the other hand continues to scoop the ground briskly behind with the whip to keep the back end coming forward. A sharp snap on the front end will be counter productive.
This takes a lot of concentration, and patience to get the correct result.
cavesson, side reins, and a whip to keep forward. Then start with in hand work and increase your the circle size.
There have been several threads that reco lunging over cavaletti and trot poles to build top line.
Ingrid Klimke has a great book on cavaletti.
No different from riding them really… with the appropriate equipment, adjusted properly.
I prefer to longe with two lines, or long line. It’s so much easier to properly connect a horse when you have two reins.
I’ve seen surprisingly good results from doing lateral work at the walk in hand. Shoulder in circle then straight, then leading up to renvers Travers halfpass.
It is quiet work, it can be done by a horse nowhere near doing these moves under saddle at the trot. And done correctly engages the abs that help raise the back.
No down side and no stress on the joints.
I also liked to double lunge my last horse because she was small, and for her it was very effective to have the second rein under her rear, both for sending her forward and for getting her to use her rear end.
My current horse is too large and rambunctious for me to double lunge comfortably/safely, though we have done it in limited amounts. My vet recommended the Pessoa system for conditioning the topline after an injury, and the effect of the device seems similar to what I was able to achieve double lunging my other horse, but (a) it’s too expensive, and (b) it has so many ropes, I’m not sure I’d feel safe using it.
What ended up being a good fit for our situation was actually working over groundpoles and cavaletti in a chambon. He learned very quickly how to lift through his withers and engage his hind end. I was really surprised by this actually because he has a tendency under saddle to run onto his forehand – the cavaletti were essential to getting him to engage his whole topline for sure. We’d been doing walk/trot over groundpoles in hand for a few weeks first though. Without that, he might have tried to rush through instead of naturally half-halting and lifting his legs deliberately to get over them.
He never had a problem putting his head up and inverting, which would be the gadgety “quick fix” use of the chambon. I don’t have any experience with it in that setting, so am not totally comfortable recommending it for your situation. If your horse is sensitive to poll pressure, in particular, the chambon is not for you. Mine isn’t, but he does get tense in fixed sidereins because he can’t effectively use his neck to help balance himself like he can in the chambon. Maybe when he’s ready for more collected work we’ll try them again.
Vienna sidereins are a nice in-between. They have the forward/down sliding action of the chambon, but without the poll pressure. There is a limit to how much the neck can stretch outward though (like fixed sidereins). I have limited experience with them.
Fixed sidereins would be the standard option and if you already have them, it’s worth just starting there and experimenting with things like groundpoles to see if you can get what you want from him that way. You might also try using just an outside siderein and experimenting with configurations for the lunge line. I like to run the line through the bit and clip it to the saddle/surcingle, so the action is more like it would be if you were riding.
I second side reins and the same as riding…transitions, transitions, transitions.
Yes you can do so much this way… flex, bend, spiral in/out.
IMO/IME it also helped me develop a better, softer hand… to learn what amount I needed to accomplish this, and how much I needed to accomplish that… but also helped me learn pace and cadence/rhythm as well. Because you’re able to see it and hear it… rather than just feel it and hear it. IF that makes sense?
It really should be like riding them. In fact with Melly, because of his strength issues and the rearing thing, it was how I learned to ride him. It also allowed us to learn to understand one another, in terms of ‘If I ask you this way, I want ____ this’. Further I will always believe it helps us establish trust that translated to undersaddle as well. Also, because I was out of shape and am an ammie, it meant he actually got a better ‘ride’ from me when my trainer wasn’t there to oversee me and early on when I was still getting myself together.
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I was taught the finer points of longeing by an imported Hanoverian mare. I learned that I could half half by pushing and a moment later stepping in front to slow her down, then immediately stepping back to go position. This all happens very quickly.
With my younger horse I did a lot of transitions withing the trot as well as between gaits. He got a lot of balance and power through the easy trot to trot up. It was pretty neat to see it develop.
I had him do a lot of walk 1/4 circle, trot 1/2 circle, repeat. This moved the transition points on each circle so he had to be paying attention. But I wasn’t a slave to the 1/4 and 1/2 circles. He had to get the quality gait even if it took longer.
I second the cavaletti work and long-lining.
It is entirely possible to half-halt on the lunge line. You need to install it as a verbal command “aaand” – all of my horses know this is a precursor to a transition up OR down and half-halt themselves accordingly. It’s followed by a flick of their ear as they transition up or down.
For top-line, you’re better served doing hacks at the walk for 30m a day. It will build a topline. You can also include pole-work, 5m of walk poles each day in warm up and cool down goes a long way. Cavaletti and poles at trot/canter done 1-2x a week. Long lining is a much better tool in the right hands but can be hard to teach a horse if you are not familiar with the concept.
I teach my horses on the lunge line, but first I teach standard ground work - pressure on the the shoulders moves the shoulders, barrels moves the barrel and haunches moves the haunches.
Then when I am lunging i will ask release with my hand holding the lunge line and “push” at the barrell.
Frequent transitions and ground poles are awesome as well
Work on a shorter line so you can stay closer to the horse (you’re moving in a circle, not taking the horse on a tiny circle), and as Dressage Strider says “push” the barrel/shoulder out with the whip, and use taps at the inside leg for proper engagement. If your horse is tense, it may take quite a bit of time at the walk to teach him to bend in, but IME, it’s pretty impossible to be inverted while bending the body to the circle. You need to use a caveson with a middle ring for this - lunging off of a halter will twist the head incorrectly and prevent proper bending. When you move to trot, it will start with a very easy, under-tempo trot. Don’t expect a working trot and relaxation to happen simultaneously at first.
I also like Vienna reins for teaching a horse to relax and stretch over the topline, but I think from your description I’d do the above process first and then add the Vienna reins once I’d achieved basic relaxation at all three gaits.
A lot of good advice here. Also, agree that cavaletti is a great tool for this purpose. Lastly, if you are able to ride outside the arena, trotting uphill (don’t let him canter!) really gets them stepping under, as does walking (only walking!) downhill. You can really build his topline doing that.
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