Reader: Why doesn’t my trainer want to let me to lunge my horse?

Charles: This question keeps coming up in various forms. We’ve talked before about circumstances where a horse’s emotional level, or the flight instinct, is on the rise. We get the horse out and he hasn’t been ridden for two or three days, even if he has been in pasture, and his emotional level is high.
We would lunge a horse – in a constructive way – for three different reasons. One is to get the freshness off a horse that is feeling good. Lunging gives him a chance to get out and kick up his heels. The second reason is to get a horse’s attention.The third is to get the horse comfortable at gaits; in other words, to get the horse to start relaxing and engaging. If we can accomplish these things before we get on the horse we’re going to get a better performance out of our horse. It is also a much safer way to get on a horse.
Back in the day, the traditional way was to just get on the horse and work it out in the saddle; even if the horse was feeling frisky, maybe jumping around and bucking a little. I have to admit, as I get older my timing is not as good, and I’ve found that I can get more accomplished in the saddle by doing the ground work before I get on. You can also think of lunging as a preflight check – a way to see what the horse is doing and where his head is. At the same time, you can see how your horse is traveling that day as well. Maybe he banged his leg or he is not tracking properly.
We’ve talked about lunging but in-hand work is also important – teaching the horse to yield the hindquarters, yield the shoulders, back up and soften on the lead rope. I don’t know about you, but most of the time I wake up in a good mood, ready to go out to work. But there are days when I wake up on the wrong side of the bed, a little cranky and not as sharp or responsive as I would like to be. Those days it takes me a little while to get my mind engaged and get myself emotionally prepared before I start working with a horse. By doing in-hand work with your horse, you can tell by her performance if she is a little off, resistant or not engaged. If you are doing the ground work with a halter and lead line and the horse is resistant to you, you know you are going to get resistance when you are in the saddle. If you are a more accomplished handler and you are doing the work with a bridle, like a lot of the dressage trainers, you can see if the horse is going to be resisting or pushing against the bit. Most of the time, if you spend 10-15 minutes on the ground preparing your horse, you will get a much better response in the saddle.

No Broncos
Another way to look at this is: why would you want to get on a horse who is bucking and has attitude on the ground? Why would you want to get on a horse that is just not a safe mount? Most of my clients are between the ages of 35 to 55. Many of them rode as youngsters, they rode well and had a natural seat, they rolled through all the things we’ve talked about like they have Velcro on their seats. Yet as we get older, have a few bad experiences, then our mortality kicks in. We know we can get hurt. We also don’t have as much time to spend working with the horse. I’ve seen it a lot in the last two decades, the adult green rider whose intentions are good, but their lack of education in handling horses and knowing what to expect end with them getting hurt.
This leads me to the comments I hear all the time – my trainer does not want me to do any ground work or to round pen my horse – and this is why I am responding again to this question. This is an old, traditional standard. Your trainer may be afraid you will run the horse into the ground and feels your horse needs to be fresh to perform. That is not what we are trying to accomplish with ground work. We are trying to make your horse safer to handle.
Take a person who is 50 and has some fear about getting hurt. Getting on a horse and getting bucked off is only going to drive that person away from continuing on with horsemanship. Horsemanship is not about just looking pretty in the saddle. While it’s important to learn how to execute our seat properly and use our rein and leg aids in the saddle, we also need to be smart about these things and stay safe.

Make It Count
Lunging a horse or round penning a horse to get the freshness off him is good, but it is not just running the horse around. The exercise must be constructive. I start all of my horses off on a 12-14 foot line. Then I ask the horse how to stop and pause. The reason we stop and pause is it gives the horse a chance to catch his wind and gives him an opportunity to look to us and turn his attention toward us. Then we can ask him to change directions and go forward. By doing this, the exercise becomes a gymnastic exercise, every time we stop the horse and change the direction the horse starts learning to shift his weight back on to his hindquarters. Once we get the freshness off the horse and the horse is light to our aids, in other words to our lead line, regardless if it is a 12, 14 or 30 foot line, then we can start teaching it transitions. Executing all transitions with verbal cues – walk, trot and canter.
These exercises have been done for hundreds of years, and are very traditional, but don’t over do them. Sometimes people are against lunging because there can be a tendency to overdo it. I have seen it myself, a horse that has been lunged for 45 minutes and is still bucking. This is because the exercise was not done constructively. There was no goal, no looking for the relaxation in the gait or asking the horse to start looking to the handler. There was no teaching the horse to walk, trot or canter with a light verbal or physical cue. To be effective the ground work must be thoughtful and with a purpose.
If your trainer is telling you not to lunge or round pen your horse because he or she thinks you should be a better rider and ride it out, then your trainer does not have your best interest in mind. I don’t know about you, but I am 62 years old and I am a pretty good rider, but I am not going to set myself up to fail. I would rather get on a horse that is obedient on the ground, more relaxed with a softer eye.
You need to have a conversation with your trainer; make it clear that you are not interested in getting bucked off and that is not what you signed up for.

God Bless,
Charles Wilhelm
It’s Never Ever the Horse’s Fault