Longeing article

I consider double longing when you have an inside line and an outside line. It’s closer to long lining but it gives you more control and helps keep the horse straighter because you can control the outside shoulder.

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This is exactly the model of the barn where I ride and keep 2 animals. All the clients have their own grooming supplies to use at home, they bathe and graze their horses, tack them up, clean their tack, etc. but have full grooming at shows. The horse prepping element being discussed here was new to me with my current barn, perhaps it is because now I have greener mounts. Our barn really limits time on the line. But about 1/4 of our 30 horses are “cantered” on show days by the assistant, trainers (we are lucky to have 2 riding trainers), and the working student. The clients are not allowed to do this, I have asked, which I find interesting, but the answer I get is that it would “muck up the works.”

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I rarely, rarely, rarely see that happen at a horse show. I won’t use the word never, but I don’t recall the last time I saw it done, although people will sometimes use Pessoa rigs or bitting rigs or the like.

Not surprised. I had just never heard of double longing as having two longe lines attached together! I learned to longe with two lines at the same time as I started ground driving.

Maybe @Bending_Line will chime in to clarify what s/he meant by the term.

For me, what you’re describing would likely be called lunging in long lines. Tomato, to-mah-to. :slight_smile:

When I took that job and was driving down to Wellington in the rig and the trainer was talking about “double longe lines” (saying I would be the only person out there without double longe lines if I didn’t have them), I could not picture what he meant…and it turns out all he meant was two longe lines connected together so that you have a 60’ radius instead of a 30’ radius. The first horse I took out to longe once at the show walked, trotted, and cantered nicely in both directions, looked loose and good, no play–so I brought him back to the barn, thinking that he looked nice and settled, mission accomplished. When the junior hunter rider got on later that day, they deemed him to be too fresh, and said he needed to be “exhausted” each morning on the longe. And trust me–there were a lot of other grooms out there in the early morning hours who were told the same thing, which you can gauge by how long they were out there and how long the horses were cantering round and round. I never saw the junior rider a single time come out early in the morning to hack him around the show grounds or the canal trails, or hand graze him, or ask that he get one of the little paddocks in the stabling area. I understand people who say stick them on the longe a few minutes and let them get the sillies out before an amateur or junior gets on…I do not understand the people who say the amateur or junior “deserves” to ride the same horse at the show as at home but without any meaningful investment of time or effort, and without asking whether it’s fair for the horse to be at a multi week show with no turn out to begin with. And the children’s hunter I mentioned (second horse)–it was like because he had a big price tag, he was supposed to be exhausted more, to justify the price tag or save the embarrassment of a rough round. I am not going to publicly name the trainer but he is well known and the articles about him usually talk about him doing right by the horses. I will say none of his own rides had to be longed…but for the client horses, it was a different set of expectations–and a lower set of rider expectations than you would see in other parts of the horse world. You would think the juniors that can do the Maclay might themselves be asked to come hack horses in the morning while in town, for example, but I never saw any of that in action at that barn or any neighboring barns the 10 weeks we were down there, with the exception of pro’s kids.

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