My pony refuses to lunge!!!!

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zebadee

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My 8 yr old 13.2 pony will not lunge i have tried useing a whip to encourage her to move away, i have tried having a friend walk round with her to get her used to it but she just walks towards me or if i use the whip gallop away turn around and gallop at me.
Does anybody have any ideas please!!

P.S. we need to lunge to get her to walk, trot and canter on her own.
we have no school so i carnt free lunge.
she is not broken properly yet.
 
Try using a very short lunge line at first - you can do it with a lead rope, for that matter. Stand behind her shoulder and encourage her to move by quiet taps or waving of the whip. She really has no choice but to move around you because it's so short. You need to keep moving, too, in order to get behind her shoulder and keep the circular motion.

This is what I did with my OTTB who hadn't a clue about lungeing and did the same things you describe. She just didn't get it. I spent one session doing the above and she got the idea pretty quickly and I was able to let out some lead and have her making a small circle around me at a walk.

Don't be in a hurry with asking for a faster gait at first - let her understand the whole concept of the circle first.
 
Yeah she has no clue i find it strange because she has had some training in the past and still has no clue but when i can catch my 2 year old who has had nothing done with her at all not even ground work she goes like a dream.
 
As baymareb says, just walk her round in a circle, with you (obviously) on the inside, and use the lunge line as an ordinary lead rope. As she gets used to an ordinary walk with you, gradually let a little more and a little more of the lead rope out until you have maybe 10ft of lunge line between you and the pony. You can gradually start to stand quietly in the middle then and let her walk round you. You might find that, in the beginning with a youngster that's still learning about life, you will get better results NOT using the lunge whip for a while. Just put the spare coil of lunge line into what would be your whip hand and lazily wave the coil at the pony. A whip, waved with energy by the trainer can provoke a strong reaction, whereas if you lower your energy levels a bit, don't look your pony in the eye and use just the coiled line, she should feel less pressured so respond more sensibly. Take it easy. Do it in short bursts of 10 mins and always end on a high x
 
yeah she is very good to walk trot and do small jumps on lead rein, i love her too bits and when i first ot her she was very bad to even let me put bit in, girth up and any weight on her but did as much work as i felt was good and then left her for about 2 months and brought everything back to her and she has being amazing this last few weeks. Never going to give up on her.
 
I had the same problem with a pony we broke when she was 6 as she was put in foal when she was 4! I think why in our case she wouldn't lunge is because she wanted to always be with me in the middle of the circle, why don't you try and long rein her? This helped build up our ponies confidence as she could here me but not always see me! Then maybe go back to very small circles of lunge, see how she gets on!

Good luck

xx
 
I have the same problem with the boy, or hopefully "had".... he turned in all the time, completely taking the ****, he knew exactly what he was supposed to do. So I asked my very experienced friend for help, and within a minute he was circling beautifully.

She showed me what she did - basically she constantly flicked the whip at his shoulder, stood a bit behind to drive him forwards, and used her voice to get him to know she meant it. I tried it straight afterwards (with her watching), and whoosh, he was off.

I would seriously get someone else involved who you trust. My last horse would turn in and rear, and it was so dangerous I had to give up, but the boy just couldn't see the point I think. sm x
 
My first horse would lunge perfectly,for a half hour period or so,then when she reckoned "enough" she would turn in and just look.If I then got behind her to restart off she`d go,then turn in again..go up and walk on her hind legs towards me!God they`re tall are`nt they! As she came to me she`d drop down on all fours ..quiet as you like.It was just a way of hers,no malice whatsoever..found it funny and rather sweet the way she was so accurate where she dropped down.
 
Have you tried 2 lines and driving her forward--a friend at the head initially
Gradually come round in a large circle usng the outside rain to stop her falling in

I used to tie the stirrups together with string under the belly then thread the lines through the stirrups

Apologies if that is not clear
 
thanks i might try and long rein her a bit to see if it helps me and a friend are going to work over the summer with her concentrating on ground work and simple things like walking off lead rein, she has resulted to rear if she cannot do anything but she has come on soo much from when i first got her, she is also napping a lot when she has a rider without a rider shes great but with she is very nappy toward me
 
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