(gentle music) And whoa. Good girl. Welcome. Today, we're gonna be talking
about lunging our horses. This is a wonderful
skill to be able to have. Lunging helps you to be able
to build your horse's top line without the weight of the rider, it helps you to be able to
build a stronger relationship and better communication
with your horse on the ground before hopping on your saddle. So it's a wonderful tool to develop. And today I'm gonna be walking
you through, step-by-step, some of the basics in your lunging, so that you can have success
with your horse working with this at home. So the first step is to organize our line. (gentle music) So I like to organize my line by taking it and folding it in half like this. So I just gather it up into my right hand. And once it's all gathered
up, it'll look like that. And that way, if my horse goes to pull, those loops can pull out really easily and it's not pulling and
getting wrapped around my hand. So once my line's all organized, I'm just gonna set it into my left hand. I'm gonna be sending her to the right. Put my thumb over the
top of my whip like that and I'm gonna have my fist
facing up to send her. So now let's talk about sending our horse. This is the most common area
that I see mistakes happen when we first learn to lunge. So the most common mistake is that the handler's pulling the horse, trying to pull them the
direction and moving backward. And what happens is the
horse ends up coming in and crowding the handler, because not knowing that
the handler's encouraging the horse to come in by moving back. So what you wanna do instead is always move towards your horse. So you wanna keep your body up, nice, strong, upward posture, and you wanna move in towards your horse, so they're moving away from you. So when I go to send, I've
got this forward posture. I'm gonna point with my belly button and my hand where I wanna go. So I'm gonna be pointing up like this. And I'm gonna stay on the side of my horse that I want her to go from. So I'm gonna be staying
on her right-hand side, as that's where I'm going
to be sending her from. So once you're in correct position, you wanna watch your horse's front legs. Your horse goes the direction
that her front legs are going. So I'm looking for them to cross over. So I'm gonna point, pick up,
ask her to step out that way, and I'm looking for
those front legs to cross and her to step away like that. So now we've got our
horse going around us, we wanna have them in
the lunging triangle. So you can see that here, that Scarlet's right in
between my left hand, which is my driving
hand, and my right hand, which is my directing hand. I wanna be standing in the
middle of her withers right here. And this allows me to be
able to keep her going at a nice, steady pace
and have good control. (gentle music) And whoa. So the next thing we're
gonna talk about is the stop. Pretty cool, huh? So my cue to stop is going
from my lunging triangle, which is this position, to just turning my shoulder like this. And you can use a verbal
cue like ho, or whoa, if you want to as well. But I teach my horses to stop straight on the lunge like this, because I later put them in long lines and it helps me when I transfer
them into the long lines to be safer that they know
this cue to stop straight. So when I first started off teaching this, obviously your horse is not
going to stop right away. And so here's an example of what to do if your horse is not stopping for you. So she's going around and I have her in my lunging triangle here. And then when I'm getting ready to stop, I'm gonna take my whip,
which is in my left hand, and I'm gonna put it
under my arm like this, so this hand is free. Then I'm going to turn my
shoulder to her shoulder, and let's say she doesn't stop. So I'm gonna encourage
her to keep walking here. If she didn't stop, I
would gather my line. So she's kinda confused,
'cause she's like, "I know I should stop here." I would just gather my line
and walk up to her like this. And when I get up to her
and she turns like that, I would just turn her straight, (gentle music continues) like that, and then reward her. And I would just do this a few times. So then I would send her back out. If she was just learning this, I'd let her go back out right away and I would just repeat it again. So I'd step up. If she didn't stop, I'd walk up and gather
that line, stop her. And you could even move her back a step to encourage her to say, no, we just want you to stand there, and then I would reward her. And then I would just repeat this until she stops every time I ask her by just turning my shoulder. So again, she goes back out. (gentle music continues) And as soon as I turn my shoulder, step in front and stop, she
should stop just like that. Good girl. So now that we know how to stop our horse, let's talk about doing transitions. Transitions are a great way to be able to build your horse's wind and
improve their focus on you. So we can do an upward transition, where we're going from walk to trot, or we can do a downward transition, where our horse is
trotting and we go to walk. Good girl. So let's talk about how we teach this. So when we're first doing
an upward transition, I'm in my lunging triangle here and I'm gonna bring my energy up, I'm gonna tell my horse and trot, and then I'm going to lift
my whip, swing with my whip, and if I need to, touch
her just above her hock. And then when I ask her to
do a downward transition, which is to slow down, I'm gonna turn my belly
button in front of her nose. So I'm going from my
lunging triangle like this, I'm gonna turn slightly this way. I'm gonna say and walk, so
I'm bringing my energy down, and then I'm going to give
and take with my right hand if she doesn't slow down. And if she really was running, I might wiggle a little with that line and slowly bring her in on the circle. So now let me demonstrate this for you. So I'm gonna send her
out here to the right and we're gonna start off by just having a nice forward walk. (gentle music continues) Okay, so now I'm gonna ask
her to do her transition up. So I've got her in my
lunging triangle here, I've got my whip down on
the ground, so pointed down, that's my neutral position. I'm gonna bring my energy up, and trot. And if she doesn't go, I'm gonna pick up my whip and trot. And there was a good transition up. So I'd like her to go
right when I change my body and say the words, so
we're gonna do another one. I'm gonna turn my body
in front of her and walk. She doesn't walk, I'm gonna
give and take a little here with my right hand, so
I'm squeezing, releasing. When she walks, I'm gonna release her. So now we're gonna do
another upward transition. So we're gonna be walking. And as I come past you here, I'm gonna ask for the upward, so and trot. And now we're gonna do
our downward, and walk. And the more transitions
you do with your horse, the smoother they're gonna get and the more attention
they're gonna give you. So next, we're gonna talk
about changing directions. So the normal way I change direction is just to stop my horse and
then just take my whip here, put it in my other hand, organize my line, and just simply lift and
send her the other way. So this would be the most common way that I would change direction. But there's another way
you can change direction that is really fun to do and can cause your horse
to think a little bit more and just break up your normal routine, and that would be going long, and I ask my horse to change by bringing my whip under
my line into my other hand, point up with my directing hand, and just send the shoulders through. And then I can switch again, bring this hand up, and
send the shoulders through. This is a really fun exercise to be able to break up your routine and just work on your
horse's responsiveness and your ability to handle that line and that whip nice and smoothly. (gentle music continues) So there's a lot more that I could talk to you
guys about on lunging. This is a wonderful subject
with a lot of variety in it. So whether we're lunging, getting her horse to
stretch more over their back on the lunge, or lunging over
obstacles for confidence, or we're using poles and cavalettis, just a lot of diversity that
you can use this tool for. If you'd like more videos on lunging, let me know in the comments below. I hope you keep enjoying your
horses over this next week, and I'll see you in the it's video. (gentle music continues)
