How to Lunge a Horse

by Horse Lunger

1.9K98

Intro: How to Lunge a Horse

If you have ever heard of lunging then you might already know how to lunge or know the basics. I drew theses pictures so you can see how 'lunging a horse' is done.

STEP 1: What Is Lunging?

Lunging is very useful and lots of people lunge there horses. Lunging is where the horse walks, trots and lopes around you. You will have to have a lunge rope or lunge the horse in a round pen.

STEP 2: Respect and Trust

Lunging is for respect between you and the horse. The horse has to do all the work of going around you. The only time he gets rest is being with you. This tells him that being with you means rest not danger. So he can be sure that you are not going to harm him and he will be comfortable around you.

STEP 3: Signs the Horse Doesn't Want to Have Anything to Do With You

'Turning into the fence' is very bad. When lunging you can make the horse stop, walk, trot and lope. You can even turn the horse anyway you want. You get to control the horse and this tells the horse your the leader. But if the horse 'turns into the fence' this is bad. He must always have his eyes on you. He can't turn his hindquarters towards you when you want him to turn around. This means he's not interested and doesn't want anything to do with you. Also tossing his head means he's telling you 'get lost!'. Then mostly when lunging you have a whip and you whip the ground to tell him he's not in charge!

STEP 4: Signs Respect and Trust Towards You

When you end the lunging you approach the horse and pet him on the face. You can even pet him softly on the face by the end of the whip to show him that the whip isn't only to hurt him. If not he might think every tool you have harms him.

Then walk away and if he fallows you this means he likes you and wants to stay near you. This is also respect and trust towards you. The more lunging you do with a horse will teach the horse and yourself.

This will have a better effect on riding as well!

8 Comments

stephenmack 9 years ago

You don't tell us in the instructable how to actually lunge the horse. Just a recommendation, if you write and instructable about something, make sure to tell the viewers.

tomatoskins 9 years ago

Great first instructable! Thanks for sharing!

Kittenfluff 9 years ago

- Why is the title Lung and not Lunge?
- You never actually describe how to lunge.

Horse Lunger 9 years ago

Yes I know that the title was wrong. I just didn't know how to edit at the time because I just got on here. Now I found out how! :)

Vyger 9 years ago

I taught both my horses to lunge, it proved to be very good training. Some horse people don't see the point of it and think that its just riding that works but all the really good trainers start from the ground with ground training. It does take a lot of time but it adds a whole different level of relationship. After I got mine working well I started using voice commands with them. It took time but eventually I didn't need anything but my voice and my hand to get them to do multiple exercises. We started facing each other and I would point with my arm the direction for them to go and give them a git command. They would walk trot or canter based on what I asked them and then I got them to stop and revers. That was probably the hardest. At the finish I gave the stop command and then told them to come to me and they would walk up to me to get their ears rubbed. So they learned to listen and follow my directions with no restraints, just the relationship between us. I trained them to be trail horses and the voice commands became very valuable on the trail. Several times we got into places where I had to dismount or even fell off and as soon as I told them to stop they did. If I called them to me they always came and I could tell them to stay were they were (ground tying) and walk away and they would not move. It was way better than those other people who ran through the trees trying to catch a horse that got loose. Mine were never loose because my voice was their restraint.

So, you have started at the right place, its a basic training that you can build on over time. I wish you success as you learn together. And by the way, I like your art work. My mare was a Ap.

Horse Lunger 9 years ago

That is pretty cool! I am work at a equine center near where I live (So near I can walk there less than five mins) and I work with some horses there. I don't have a horse myself but the people there let me lunge and ride there horses. I clean there paddocks and learn more about horses there. Raleigh, a dun quarter horse, is the one I work with! I also fell in love with a pure black mustang! But I don't work with him yet sadly. His name is Cole and hopefully I will get to lunge him too!