Having a hooley on the lunge

[Ziggy_]

Just wondering what your thoughts are on this.

My mare will often have a major buck and fart session on the lunge, she's quite exhuberant to ride but saves the bucking for when I'm not on her, which I'm quite happy about. At present I deal with it by keeping her out on as big a circle as I can (to minimise risk of injury to her) and use the whip to keep her away from me (to minimise risk of injury to me). I usually follow it by a fair bit of canter work on the other rein, to keep things even. While I allow a hooley she does have one major bad habit on the lunge, of stopping, rearing spinning and pelting off the other way, which I never allow and do tell her off for as I don't want her thinking its ever acceptable to do this while I'm working her.

Obviously though its always in the back of my mind the risk of injury, the strain she's putting on her joints and the risk of slipping over, especially when its wet. It also tears the arena surface up quite a bit which I feel a bit guilty about.

So what are peoples thoughts on this? Are you just glad your horse saves it for when you aren't on his/her back, or do you actively try to avoid/discourage or even encourage it to 'let off steam'?

My reason for asking, is that winter turnout is restricted at my yard and my girl is feeling a bit pent up some days. Bless her, she's controlling herself well when I'm on her but I know she has excess energy and I'm wondering what is the safest way to get rid of it!! She wears boots all round when lungeing and usually wears a chambon as well.

 

[ofcourseyoucan]

its fine as long as the horse can differentiate between lunging as a leg stretch and hooley, and lunging for work (ie rythym, shape, collection, bend!) and as long as your yard is ok with the horse cutting up the surface and going down to the base level of menage!! if your horse is feeling so well, i would cut back some of her bucket grub, and negotiate more turnout! Hooliying does run the risk of strains, over reaches ..... etc

 

[MrsMozartletoe]

The lass has to get rid of her energy somewhere

, and it's damn good of her not to do it when you're on top

.

LC does it, Tigs used to, Dizz has the occasional bomb round. I allow it for a moment or two, then ask for some work and make sure that they work hard and well

.

 

[stencilface]

I have to lunge on a sloping field (in the summer obviously) and my horse does this the little tinker

I would let her do it til she gets bored, as long as she isn't getting too dangerous tbh. Then work her.

 

[Tickles]

If she has the energy it does have to go somewhere... Do try for more turnout if you can. Also: could you vary things by occasionally loose schooling? Possibly over jumps? Lunging is good but you can see why they get bored and need to do other things too...

 

[DressageDiva1983]

both my horses do this, pip would never, ever buck with me on her but takes the oppertunity for the first 5 mins of lungeing to buck like stink, have a bomb round then will settle, i actively encourage this as when the excess is gone she is in the right frame of mind to work. Pea however is a different kettle of fish, she does the rearing and bogging off as you describe, she used to it so violently that she pulled my arm out once. I solved this by only ever lunging her in a bridle with the line attatched to the bit and when she reared tugging as hard as i could repeatedly on the line until she came down and continued to work. She hardly does it anymore!

 

[RachelB]

Sometimes you just have to let them do it - especially in the winter. We have just had our school re-surfaced at work, and we're not supposed to be lungeing on it, but one particular little horse is just a bit too exhuberant to ride at the moment so my boss asked me to lunge her quietly for 20 minutes... she went completely loopy, careered round, bucked, reared, span, totally uncontrollably, for about 10 minutes. Sometimes you just have to stand there and let them let it out - it's far safer for them to do it on the lunge IMO! Once she had calmed down we started again - I took that as her warm-up and I then worked her for the 20 minutes. She settled and worked quite sweetly.
I usually find I can stop them spinning by staying behind them - I lunge by walking a circle anyway, and as I walk I step towards the horse's flank. This keeps me from blocking the movement and means that if I have to get behind a lazy horse with the whip, I can. If I have a whizzy horse I may not use a whip, or I'll keep it pointing backwards behind me so it's not making them move on too fast. If I have one that likes to turn around, I'll keep it pointing out to my side so if they try to whip round I can block it.