What do you do with your horse on the lunge?

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Morgan123

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Hello,

I'm looking for ideas for making my lunging sessions more interesting. What do you do with yours, particularly to get them to work really through? I usually do the following exercises:

firstly starting off just pickling up rhythm and natural balance, before working on more specific exercises to get him thinking/working properly by doing:

repeated transitions
Spiral circles looking for rhythm and really stepping through on the outward bi of the spiral and bigger steps on the outside track
Bigger/small steps (e.g. a medium to a more collected sort of trot).

This normally keeps my occupied for 25 minutes but I'd like some more exercises so my horse and me don't get too bored.
 
My boy responds really well to poles on a circle in a fan shape - good for collection and extension. I also use the long side to change where I'm doing my circle - I'll take him off the circle and ask him to really extend up the track and then circle at the other end.

Also putting raised poles up the track helps to get him to work more from behind.
 
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After warming up I usually put some poles down, sometimes flat n sometimes slightly raised, gets up thinking about his feet. As a treat every now and again we do some loose jumping which he really loves. Will be watching this thread with interest.
 
Pole work.....tho my old mare loves lunging to Linken Park!!! So maybe try some music and match horses gaits to different beats of songs:) do much fun
 
hmm thank you. My horse is not the biggest fan of poles (he thinks they will eat him), but will give it a go. He is not a fan of lunging either, come to that, so I try and keep it stress free for him, but we will try that. Thank you.

any other ideas as well?
 
Poles on the floor and raised, transitions (every half circle if he needs to wake up), stretching long and low, collecting and then pushing on in a working paces and spiraling in and out of the circle :)
 
How about some direct transitions? Halt to trot and walk to canter - just a few strides of canter if you are not a fan of cantering on the lunge.
25 minutes of lunging is quite hard work for the horse though; my mentor from my Pony Club years used to say that 20 minutes lunging is equivalent to an hour of ridden work. It is also quite hard on the horse's joints, being constantly on a circle, so if you or the horse are getting bored, then maybe vary his work in other ways?
 
We do some poles on the ground in a circle then put them up on the small pods, and then will do a small cross pole, just to add a bit of interest to the session, this is along side all the normal stuff in the warm up.
 
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