Okay. So my new horse is pretty green, and I would like to lunge her just before riding her, just so she can stretch and become relaxed. The problem is, I don't think that she remembers how to lunge. I took her on the lunge line, and asked her for a trot which didn't take too much. However, when I asked her to woah she had no idea what I was asking and started going faster. The only way I could stop her was pulling on the lunge line, which made her nervous and decided to canter sideways. Eventually she stopped though.
I really want to fix this problem with her, just because I think lunging before riding her would be very beneficial to our ride sometimes. My question is what do I do to help her become better on the lunge line and get her to understand woah?
I just went through this exact thing with my boy. I started by walking alongside him, I would say woah and stop moving. Eventually he figured out that when I say woah and/or stop my own motion, he was to stop. After he had that down, I started asking him to move farther away from me and do the same, it took him a few sessions but eventually he understood. Once I had him walking/stopping happily on a circle around me, I progressed to the trot. I would ask him to trot and make sure he continued trotting until I asked him to walk. I spent a lot of days lunging him and asking him to go walk/trot/stop and many variations of the three, never asking in the same place or after the same amount of circles.
The best thing is to take it slow at first, my boy lunges walk/trot/stop beautifully now. I am 99% sure that he had never (or at least, hardly) ever been lunged before I owned him. We are still working on the canter, but he has difficulties with it because he is only 3 and not very balanced.
Dont Panic. I always lunge in our outdoor ring so that if my horse gets away from me, no big deal. When he starts trotting faster when you say whoa...stay calm and say it again. Dont yank, dont fight, just stay calm and say WHooOoOoAAHHH. If he keeps going, try using Walk or Eeeeeasy. And ofcourse...when he does it...hes not going to run around all day long! Praise the crap out of him. Tell him what a good boy he is. Ask him to do it one more time and then do some other leadline things with him. When they are first learning (or relearning) its best to keep lessons short and interesting. Accomplish a goal and move on.
Pay attention to your own body language. If you're verbally telling her to slow down, but standing there squared up on her and tense, to her you're still saying speed up. Really exaggerate your body language while you're teaching her. While you're telling her to slow down, exhale and let all the tension out of your body. After awhile, she'll start responding to your body language alone.
i would start in tiny circles while lungeing at a walk first then get bigger and move up to trot. (reteach) the verbal commands. just like you would be doing for training a horse that has never lunged
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