Teaching horse to stretch long and low on the lunge

[Alterration]

I do a lot of spirals in and out on the longe which makes them stretch by encouraging bend and use of the hind leg. While I do that I squeeze my hand on the longe line gently once or twice as the signal and praise them when they step under and the head comes down.

[MapleBreeze]

Spirals in and out on the lunge to loosen shoulders then for the release sometimes if you stroke the lunge line like you’re brushing your hair and push it out to encourage the horse to go forward and down you can get the stretch without the gadget. That is really hard to convey in writing but easy to feel.

[mvp]

@OceansAway

Endlessclimb and SuzieQNutter, I particularly like the chambon myself, and used it on my mare. I was nervous about using it on this guy, in case he panicked when he felt the pill pressure, since he is so conditioned to carrying his head higher, and is prone to spooking with his head in the clouds.

How did you get the horse to stretch down from flexing left and right? I feel like I could flex forever and my horse would have zero response.

This horse might help you learn a ton!

If this were my horse, I’d double-lunge him, meaning using two reins and lunging him so that I could “speak” to his mouth similar to how I would when on his back and use my aids to help him stretch. BTW, the whip or my body position stepping from the opposite the girth to his hind end or “behind” him is my leg.

What you and this horse need is a signal in your hand for “stretch out and down.” That comes from you teaching him a pattern of pressure and release. Colts are taught this from the beginning and folks start with lateral flexion of the neck-- one rein held out from the neck (and “opening rein”)-- until, in finding this to be uncomfortable, the horse is moving his head around just happens to give his jaw and head and drop off the pressure and put slack in the rein. Other colts don’t soften their jaw, but continue to feel hard on the rein while turning their head. Either way, he has put slack in the rein and at that point you instantly give the rein to him as a reward.

That’s the most basic form of how to start to create a horse who educated in his mouth. You just teach him that 1. When you pull, he can earn your a release by giving to you, not pulling or not staying so dead that he just allows you to pull his head and neck around like dead weight. Most colts won’t just allow you to pull their head around like dead weight; they’ll fuss a bit to try to get out of that. That dead-weight phenomenon is one that bad training has created. 2. Once you have this pattern installed in him, you then change what you reward, giving when he turns his head OR softens in the jaw, or hanging on while he’s done one or the other until he does both at the same time and releasing the pressure for that.

Again, you are just teaching him a pattern of pressure you apply and what he can to to get you to release it. Jealoushe and Maple Breeze both describe versions of this. If your horse would rather run and pull or turn his whole body, not his neck, so that he’s stiff from nose to tail, you need to “back up a step” in his training and teach him to give to pressure by turning just his head.

An important caveat: It takes timing and feel to teach this. If you don’t have that and hang on too long, you teach a horse to just tuck his chin without using his whole neck. Don’t do that; it will take more skill than you have to fix the problem, and it will take a significant amount of time. If he just tucks his chin and does nothing with the base of the neck, you will not be able to influence his back. This is why it’s really important to teach a horse a signal for stretching his neck out and down from your hand.

The weird conceptual thing is that you are pulling on the reins in order to “push” the neck out. It sounds contradictory, but what makes it work/what is really happening is that you taught the horse a pattern and a system of pressure and release.

People teach colts to flex laterally first because it’s physically easier than flexing both sides of the neck at once and because it doesn’t feel like such a trap for a flight animal (who is so unbroke that he might rear).

So, in answer to your question, you get that downward flexion from teaching a horse that you will give him room if he flexes to the side and also “asks for more room” by stretching his neck down at the same time. He’ll do this to each side first; a good rider with timing and feel can eventually get him to stretch straight down.

IME, horses who have been screwed up in their education in the front end don’t suddenly figure it out and do well in static things like side reins because they offer no reward. I do like a chambon and a Pessoa bitting harness might help a bit because they both can (crudely) teach this pattern of taking and giving when a horse stretches the top of his neck and back. But I think these are poor seconds to a skilled rider or handler who can teach this signal.

If I were putting either device on for this first time and worried in the way you describe, I’d just attach it to the inside ring of the bit while I was lunging. Just as with a colt, this gives the horse “a place to go” and a way to escape pressure by merely turning his head or body in a way that pressure on both reins does not. As I said, an uneducated, hotter horse will feel trapped by pressure on his mouth that he doesn’t know how to make let go. A mis-educated horse will have been made dead and dull by poor riding that taught him that he’d never escape that pressure no matter what, so he might as well not bother to try to adjust his body at all.

You have to make them light to pressure in the mouth because you want to be able to influence the whole neck. You want to influence the whole neck, not just the top or top half because you don’t actually care about the neck; putting the neck in a particular position forces the horse to use his core and back in the “lifted in front, hind end has room to come under” posture that we want. But that is hard work! A horse whose “neck has been ridden badly” (and those with carriage horse-type conformation) fill find it easier to just tuck their chin, leave their ribcage low between their shoulder blades, their back hollow and then, out of biomechanical necessity because the barrel is in the way, their hind legs out behind them.

My horses always have the “stretch down, I can ‘push your neck out’” button in stalled in them. In fact, my runaway mare even has it! Because they have this, I can “ride them from the ground” with the right double-lunging set up. And that lets me do what I think you are trying to do with this horse: Put his head where I want as he’s moving so that I can get him to use his back in the way I want without his having to carry my weight.

The ground work style exercises Scribbler mentions will help your horse engage his back as well, albeit in a different way.

Either way, you might need to get a good pro to help you with this bit of your horse’s re-education. Someone who comes from English world and knows how to long-line can probably get you started, or a very good, kind, educated Western person can help. Same if the person is a very high-quality Natural Horsemanship type. Someone who does dressage in the French school will also know how to make a horse educated in the hand.

Hope this helps!

[CanteringCarrot]

Excellent post, MVP.

[eightpondfarm]

@mvp

As I said, an uneducated, hotter horse will feel trapped by pressure on his mouth that he doesn’t know how to make let go. A mis-educated horse will have been made dead and dull by poor riding that taught him that he’d never escape that pressure no matter what, so he might as well not bother to try to adjust his body at all.

In the very raw beginnings the release part of pressure-release has to come easily, quickly and waaaaay before you achieve what you’re actually after, and release even the smallest movement in the right direction. i have a gawky late bloomer who currently, as a ‘teenager’ is so adverse to pressure that a release has to be given very early, and this has to be done repeatedly and a bit of a recovery time before a ‘turn’ pressure is again applied. This guy has bees buzzing around in his head and did not get it right away. I only ride him once a week, (4yo and immature in head/big in body already) He will chomp around, bite and pull and wobble his head and in the beginning i needed to follow his neck as it wove around and had to be about 80% give(release) and only 20% of take(pressure). I could only build on the education after he started learning (all the way through his thick teenage brain (lol)) that he could earn it.

What i do with the mustangs is i have a halter-bridle and do a sort of double-bridle approach to transition them to a bit. And in one small session …me on the ground… i’ll pull the halter rein release/praise. Then pull the next moment on the bit rein and release/praise. Again on the other side. Seems that with them, though they learn really quickly because they LIKE learning, they are also resistant to bits. So much so with some of them that it overrides sense. So, this way i can teach them a direct correlation between give-to-pressure on a halter and a bit. It makes them really light too.

I wonder if a halter/bit might help with retraining this horse of OP’s

[OceansAway]

Thank you, everyone. So many wonderful posts to read and digest. When I figure out a plan and start to implement, I’ll give an update.

[J-Lu]

THIS. Sir SpooksAlot has had extensive groundwork training. Recently, I taught him to lead with my hand at the withers for something new. I can turn him left and right, stop, and jog off.

I consider this kind of training useful if something like a hurricane comes through and the horses get out. He won’t run if approached.

I’ve also taught him to free-longe in the arena based on voice commands. I can get him to follow me if a run alongside him at higher gaits, he’ll slow down and follow me. Because I originally taught him to longe in long side reins, he lowers his head in the “long and low” when we free longe at all gaits. He’s also a high-headed horse by nature. Repetition got him to relax and lower his neck.

Earlier on, I also made him longe over poles. I’d change the distance between poles to encourage him to look down at the poles. I’d walk him around the arena to hit walk, trot and canter-based poles. This really worked for my horse.

My horse’s default is to stiffen his neck and topline. He wants to go with his head in the air. He’s gotten so much more correct and swinging through the back over time. Head in the air with a hollow back = uncomfortable work. Head low with his back up = comfortable work. He has very much figured this out. He lives outside 24/7 except for inclement weather in his own 1+ acre pasture and I see how much he uses himself better when he runs around. Sure, he still trots and runs with his head in the air “WHERE’s my buddy! Oh, there he is”. “Oh my buddy is at the far side of his pasture? I have to run to my buddies on the other side cuz I’m all alone in life!!!” But I see that he has used his body so much more when running because of the groundwork and training I’ve done.