Why The Need For Lunging?

Lunging, lunging, lunging! It is spelled so many ways and has so many meanings for people.

I’ve watched people lunge horses with a purpose, others with a crazed look in their eye (the person, although the horse too…), even those who are completely bored and not really doing anything except holding the line as the horse circles madly around them – only taking enough notice to know when to pass the line over their head for their feet have grown into the ground and are now incapable of turning their own body around to follow the horse with their eyes.

My early impression of lunging was somewhat mixed. I didn’t see any relationship between round penning a horse, free lunging a horse, and that thing that english riders liked to do so their horse was tired enough to be ridable.

Eventually my impression of lunging as a tool for tiring the horse used by english riders was righted and I realized that it was used by western riders for the same purpose and even taken a step further – they created a class to win ribbons for what they would happily do before their normal classes without accolades.

I was brought up in the round penning camp, the John Lyons natural horsemanship realm. A place which looked up moving the horse in a circle and wearing him out was a tool to bridge the gap between the horse’s physical resistance and interest in communicating with the beast in the center of the pen. Once you exhausted or motivated they physical aspect of the horse to a sufficient level you could then access the brain and begin talking to the horse in a more civilized and committed manner.
I wonder if natural horsemanship ruled the education of our children, they would be run around in round pens until they were tired before being sorted into their classrooms for education. Would that eliminate ADD and ADHD?

Free lunging, it was impressed upon me at an early stage, was something that overly sympathetic women liked to do with their horses because they lacked the guts to reprimand, punish, or have a firm hand with their horse during the training process. I am glad my mind did not become cemented to this misjudgement.

Lunging is nothing new. It has been used for centuries for various purposes. In the stables of kings and conquerors, at the hand of the military’s cavalry, still in use at the Spanish Riding School for the education of both horse and rider. In a more widespread context however lunging is used primarily for the benefit of tiring the horse out and as something to do when the horse is too old to sit in the pasture and too young to start riding.

I’ve used lunging for a long time, and began into it with wayward pause and the mild guidance of a Dressage instructor. Her helping hand still left many holes in my understanding of lunging, mostly because of the widespread phenomenon of “because” as a reason for doing something. I got no explanation of why I should make sure the horse’s hind feet were stepping into the front hoof prints. Or why I should make sure the horse halted square even at a distance.

It wasn’t until I worked formally with a Classical Dressage instructor that I began to get some of the why questions answered more thoroughly, and even still there were some open holes that had to be filled with lots of observation, practice and patience. I didn’t find them in books, or they were answered in such a complex and complicated way that even knowing the why I was still confused at the author’s description.

So, with that… I will be launching into a series of blog posts addressing lunging the horse from what to do BEFORE lunging, starting young horses or first timers on the lunge, using lunging for retraining or rehabbing horses, advanced things you can do with lunging and even addressing some issues that may show up in the process of learning how to lunge and what to do with them.

I really enjoy lunging horses and have spent countless hours, days, weeks, months on end of working horses daily on the lunge to develop them… and also in using lunging to teach riders a more balanced seat and how to use their aids more effectively. It is such a valuable resource to have and know, and I look forward to exploring it more with my readers.

Keep an eye out for the next installment!