The Art of Lunging.

Lunging a horse is a great way to start the lesson out. This will help get your horse with you. Sometimes many young horses will be very fresh when they come out of the pasture and can be scattered. Lunging will tire the horse as well as get him in sink with you, the rider. Lunging can also be a form of exercise for horses that are not being ridden.

To begin the horse should have splint boots on to prevent any injury to their legs. Also you will need a whip and a lunge line if in an arena and you may choose to use a lunge line if you are in a round pen. You want to start the horse going one direction. While going this direction you want to keep everything the same. If you are going to the left, you should make sure that your whip is in your right hand and your line is in the left hand.

Start the horse out by walking. Keep the whip low and say walk. You do not want the whip to be your fist line of attack for the horse. Teach him based on words. So ask the horse to walk. If he does not respond with your voice, gently wiggle to whip on the ground. This should get him walking.

Ask the horse to trot. Do this by again first saying trot. If he does not trot raise your whip so that it is even with the hip of the horse. If he does not trot with the elevated whip then shake it a little. He should begin to trot.

Next, you can ask the horse to canter. As you can guess, first begin by saying the word canter. Raise your whip so that it is elevated a more toward the sky. As the horse begins to canter, move your whip from front to back with the movement of their legs. This will keep the beat for the horse.

So remember, use your voice first and then the whip. Also, the whip will determine the speed of the horse. The higher, the faster, the lower the slower the horse will go. You also can switch directions and follow the same steps but put the whip in the left hand and the rope in the right.

Lastly, try to do different combinations of gait changes and directional changes. You want to see your licking his lips and lowering his head. That means he is becoming submissive to you, and that is the main goal of lunging for me anyways.

Here is a short video also: Lunging Demo