Lungeing is a very useful tool for working with your horse or pony.  While it can be simply used to exercise your horse, it is also helpful for building relationship with your horse, teaching voice commands, bringing your horse back into work and training young horses.

In order to be able to lunge your horse, you will need a lunge line (approximately 8 metres long works well) and a lunge whip.  If you are new to lungeing wearing gloves is a good idea.

You need a flat area – it can help if it is enclosed but this is not essential.  Assuming you have little experience with lungeing, it can be a good idea to attach the lunge line to a halter rather than a bridle.  This means that as you learn you won’t be accidentally yanking on your horse’s mouth which can cause pain and even damage.  Once you have clipped the lunge line to the halter, gather the line up in loops.  Do this in such a way that as you ask your horse to go out onto the circle the loops will feed out from the top down and not get tangled around your hand at any point.  Hold the loops over your fingers rather than around your hand, so that if your horse was ever to get a fright or spook your hand would come free easily.

When you lunge your horse you are aiming to be working in a triangle.  Your lunge line forms one ‘side’ of the triangle, your whip the other ‘side’ and your horse the bottom of the triangle.  Each of the sides – from you to your horse’s nose and from you to your horse’s tail should be the same distance.  In order to have your horse moving well it helps for you to be standing at the point of balance just behind your horses shoulder.  To keep this simple, imagine where the stirrup hangs and stay at around that point with your horse perpendicular to you.  If you are too far forward or too far back, this will cause your horse to move off the circle.

Choose simple commands for your horse e.g. walk, trot, canter and whoa and be consistent in how you use the commands.  Use the commands with a higher uprising tone when you want your horse to move faster and a lower falling tone when you want your horse to slow down.  Resist the urge to use a range of other words when lungeing your horse and use the same command each time you ask for the same response.  Keep things simple, clear and consistent and you will make it easier for your horse to learn.

Once you are in position and ready for your horse to move off, ask for a walk and flick the whip.  If your horse moves off, reward the right response by keeping the whip still and removing that pressure.  Only add pressure again by asking your horse to walk or flicking the whip if your horse slows down to stop.  If your horse doesn’t move off when asked, ask again and continue to flick the whip until you get the desired response.  Remember though if your horse is inexperienced at lungeing, be patient and allow him time to work out what you are asking.  Although at this point I would suggest that if you are learning to lunge, ideally you will be learning with a horse that knows how to lunge, or if your horse is inexperienced that you will have help from a person who is experienced at lungeing.

When you are ready for your horse to move from a walk to a trot, use the command trot and flick the whip.  Again once your horse responds remove pressure in order to reward him.  You may then ask your horse to slow down again by using the command ‘walk’ (in a low, falling tone).  If your horse does not slow give a firm but gentle tug on the lunge line and ask again.  As you get more confident ask your horse to move through the paces and see if you can do this with less and less use of the whip, until you are able to get your horse responding to voice commands alone.

When you ask your horse to stop, you are aiming to have your horse stop on the circle, staying perpendicular to you rather than moving in to you.  It may take some practice for your horse to work this out, so be patient and reward your horse well when he gets this right.

Take the opportunity to reinforce the voice commands you are using by also using them when you are riding your horse.  As with any lessons for your horse, be patient and consistent and always finish when things are going well and you are both succeeding.