Some advice please - lunging and long reining

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Welshie17

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Hi all
I've browsed the forum for a while but this is my first post - please be kind!

I have a middleweight cob who is great to hack, but hates any form of schooling. This isn't so much a problem in the summer, but come winter it is a nightmare as it's not always possible to hack out in daylight hours and I want to make sure he is getting enough exercise.

Out hacking he is lively, responsive and full of energy, however he is clumsy behind and doesn't use his hindquarters properly and that's something id like to work on. In the school he is slow, lethargic and unresponsive. I've had a few different people out, all of whom haven't been much help if I'm truthful and I'm at my wits end!

I've been advised to lunge or long rein him in an effort to get him to use his whole body, along with some grid work. The problem is, he has no idea how to lunge (he's 10 and didn't have the best start to life) and despite trying many times with lots of outside assistance and really going back to basics, he just doesn't get it - or doesn't want to! Another instructor suggested long reining which we've had some success with but if he's not feeling like it he'll just stop and rear. He will literally only work if he has another horse to follow or if someone on the ground is leading him. I feel like I've tried everything and don't know where to turn next!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated :-)
 
To long rein him successfully you may need to carry a whip and if he won t respond to slap of the reins on his flank, give him a reminder on the bum, assuming he is not going to double barrel you and also always wear gloves hat and boots.
Any negative response from him and you make him work harder, better to get someone experienced and nimble to do it for you if in doubt. Long reins need to be long enough to put in a 10 m circle
Is there anything he likes in the school? a few easy jumps for example, with different distances including bounces.
 
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Thank you for your reply. I do carry a whip but he can be lazy and a quick swat with the whip has very little effect!
It's getting him to work full stop let alone getting him to work harder although I do always make sure we end on a good note even if it means I physically have to lead him.
He's happy to pop a few poles but again he gets bored quickly and will stop and either not move or rear when I ask him to go forward. :(
 
Do you have an instructor who can help you? A good instructor will be able to help you to motivate him to go forwards and be more obedient and responsive, both on the lunge and under saddle. Lunging is not easy!
 
I would persevere to try and find a really good instructor. I really rate long reining, however unless you are super good at it I don't think it will achieve what you want, and I wouldn't bother with the lunging tbh.
 
Hi and welcome to the forum.

I teach longeing and long-reining to horses and people of all ages, and there are a few things which can make a difference when starting out.

For both longeing and long-reining, I always begin by doing in-hand work with the horse so that he learns to yield to the halter, and to yield his head/neck/shoulder and quarters away when I approach him in an assertive manner. He should be able and willing to move when asked, and to stop and stand. He should also, at this stage, be taught to accept ropes over his neck, back, croup and tail, and down and round his hind legs as a precursor to long-reining.

Teaching him to yield his fore helps when he is out on the circle as that is what I use to dissuade him from turning in to evade. The horse must understand that he should move forward when I ask him and focus my attention on his quarters, and position myself slightly behind the 'drive line' (roughly where the girth lies), and to slow or stop when I position myself slightly in front of the drive line. As he is learning this, I introduce the vocal commands.

Once the horse is au fait with this, I position myself so that I can ask him to yield his fore away and, as he does so, I re-position myself so as to send him on, on a small circle around me to begin with but, as he goes out and on, I quickly lengthen the rope and increase the size of the circle. A horse finds it quite difficult to move fluently on a tight circle, so is more likely to evade.

With a young or inexperienced horse it is virtually impossible to stand in one spot and keep him going, so you really have to be quite mobile and aware of your body position and manner to control the horse in the early stages. At times you will need to be quite far back to drive him on, and at others fairly in front of the drive line to slow him down. This often involves walking on a circle yourself within the circle made by the horse. Enlarging or reducing the size of the circle by lengthening or shortening the rein will sometimes help with control of his forward momentum.

I never use a longe whip when starting horses on the longe, but if you want to use one you have to use it with caution so the horse doesn't become afraid of it. Raise it when you need a visual aid, and lower it when the desired result is achieved.

Your body language and position can be used to put remote pressure on the horse, or reduce the pressure according to how he is going. If he looks out of the side of his eye and thinks about turning in, it is because you are either too far behind and driving his quarters out, or not far enough in front and failing to persuade him to yield his fore out onto the track. You can use this fore yielding to take him down the long side of the school and onto another circle, repeating occasionally, on either rein, to prepare him for going straight on the long-reins.

The more able you are to read your horse's subtle signals and pre-empt any intention to evade, the more likely he is to get on with the job and pay attention to you.

With long-reining, I think it is very important to teach the horse to yield to both reins before starting in the long-reins. This can be done on the ground, with short reins, and requires that the horse learns to yield to light rein pressure from either side. You can teach this by standing at the horse's shoulder, facing him, and lifting the rein toward the wither. The weight of the hand should be just enough to persuade the horse that the option he must take is to yield round to you. As he does, you drop the weight on the rein and praise, Then ask again and teach him to yield round so that he turns his head as far as he is physically able. As he becomes more supple, so you can ask for more flexion until he is willingly yielding and able to bring his muzzle to near his girth.

The purpose of teaching yielding to both reins is so that the horse can be easily steered by light signals on the reins, and he can be blocked by the outside rein if he tries to spin in the long-reins. Having been taught this exercise, he will be unlikely to attempt to spin as an evasion when you get going.

As you have taught him to longe as described above, it is then fairly straight forward to add another rein and send him off on a circle, then straighten him out and begin introducing serpentines and the like on long-reins.

When the horse is doing as he's been asked, there is no need to keep at him with commands. Only when he does other than what he has been asked should you get after him with voice or some visual signal. When he is good, tell him so.

The stopping and rearing in the long-reins is an evasion which you will have to address. It is important not to block him from forward movement when he stops. If he feels that he will be blocked as he goes forward, the horse will look for another way out. Some people are slightly afraid that the horse will run off, so they repeatedly check him as he steps forward, and this can lead to hesitancy or refusal to go forward, resulting in spinning or rearing. Using the reins to 'slap' his sides as an aid to ask him forward will have an effect on his mouth as well, so try not to use that method. If you have mouthed him well and taught him to yield to light hands, he will learn that he can go, and he will know that there are no other options.

However, with a horse which has already learned to stop and refuse to go on, it is sometimes the case that you have to take up a light weight on the rein and wait for him to respond. He may decide to back up, in which case you would keep the weight on the rein until he stops, then immediately open the rein and give him the option to go forward. You don't want to pull him back; just allow him to back up, feeling the bit in his mouth, so that when he stops he feels the benefit of the release. This, repeated a few times will often encourage a horse to go forward when asked. Be ready to block him on the outside rein and, as he straightens out, release the rein and free him up to go forward, if he attempts to juke out the side.


Hope that helps, and good luck.
 
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Thanks everyone. I've tried 4 instructors so far - two were near on useless and had worse results than I did, one advised me to keep him just as a happy hacker and not worry too much about what his hindquarters were up to and the last one we had some success with albeit for the majority she was stood in the centre of the school and I was leading him round!
To be honest I feel like I've wasted money on all of them and 2 of them came highly recommended!
I've never encountered anything like my horse - I've been riding 25 years and have a wide variety of experience so I like to think I'm competent enough to handle this but I really feel I have exhausted all angles with him.

Thank you very much AengusOg, some great advice there which I'll certainly try. It's just getting him to move at all that's the trouble at the moment. He's fine with lunge lines, whips, etc.. and he is very soft mouthed so I make sure I have barely enough contact but it's almost as though as soon as I start to get him thinking about moving forward, he gets some weight on the forehand then immediately resents it, shifts his weight back and rears. He's nice and supple so shouldn't struggle with circles and turns at all yet get him in that school and he's solid as a board! I've tried grass arenas, indoor areas and even just a field but as soon as I ask for any 'listening' from him he's against it.
 
I specialise in in-hand and ground-work and I like a challenge :) if you're anywhere near Buckinghamshire I'd be happy to help ;)
 
Do you have a 5 furlong hill you can work on, to get his hind quarters working, I mean interval training on it, that is to say start with trotting up, walking down, and over 4-6 weeks have him trotting twice plus a nice canter as a reward. The danger is that he will start to nap as he realises he is being asked for effort. He may of course have some physical problem , but it sounds like attitude.
Ask someone to walk him out, and trot him up to see if he is correct. Is there any sign of a problem with farrier [hind leg stiffness, thrush] and is his tail set correctly. My boy used to walk out very forward, but I realised this was part of the spooky problem, he was very quick to run for home, but he did not feel tense, I would say he "internalised" his fears.
 
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