Preparing for Longeing
By this time you are probably seeing a change in your horse’s attitude and behavior and hopefully enjoying each others company more and as I said we will proceed to get them ready for longeing.

Why do we longe? I’ll tell you why I longe and what I expect and I’ll tell you what I don’t expect. I longe to get my horse focused and to teach them the gaits they need to know, and the pace at which those gaits are to occur. I can correct a lot of problems on the longe line. I correct bucking & rearing, running away at full speed and I teach them to look to the inside (flexion), and I can teach them to collect, all without the aid of other “gadgets”. I teach trust & respect, and I am safe on the ground, therefore, the horse doesn’t have to worry about anyone on their back placing them off balance or banging on their mouth. They can just concentrate on what I am trying to teach them. There is much more to this but you get the idea.

So as you can see longeing is a very useful tool for me. Contrary to what a lot of people think, I don’t longe my horse to get the “fresh” out. I know what you’re thinking. (Be nice) I don’t have time when I come to the barn to longe for 20 minutes to get the “fresh” out. I come to ride…or to longe…or to play…or to hang out. If my horse is on a longe line, I will get their energy out at the pace and gait I choose. (Remember we choose where they go, when they go and how they go). We choose. Our horse shouldn’t be making decisions, because they aren’t really good at it. I believe, and I work all my horses this way, that they will wait for me to make the decisions, after all I am the herd leader. We have been working on this objective from our first lesson, and believe it or not, all my horses longe well. I’m not saying I don’t have to make corrections, but I make them and then continue on. I’ve seen many horses at the end of a longe line, running around like a crazed animal, first thing in the morning after being cooped up in a stall all night, and the potential for injury to horse and handler is considerable. What would you rather have? A horse that does as it wants or one that listens and waits for you to help? We are partners and the horse depends on us to take care of its needs and make sure its safe.

So, why do we longe? We longe for focus, to train, retrain and exercise. There are a couple of other reasons but these are the main reasons. Before you can longe your horse properly, you need to do the previous lessons to ensure that your horse understands some basic words and body positions. We’ve seen that where and how we have our body, influence’s our horse and probably the most important part of longeing, is to stop and stand (whoa), and we have already started that in previous lessons, but I will now give you some more exercises or things to do that will teach our horse to stop and stand.

We’ve used our body, our hand (bring it up, palm facing them) and our voice. We’ve done that not only to teach them that we can communicate our intention for them to stop using our body and voice, plus that we can get them to move (or stop) their feet and reaffirm ourselves as leader and also, they need to focus and think about what we are doing or saying. We have also reinforced our body signals (aids, cues) with our voice aids, so that we are starting to build a few words that they can recognize.

The first step in getting them to longe , is letting them know that it is ok to stop and NOT walk with us. When we move, they move, if we move into their space, they move away, if we move away, they should maintain that initial space. So, they may want to walk with us and our next job is to teach them not to do that, but wait for our next request. How do we that? It’s easy, but you may have to repeat this many times. How many? As many times as is necessary for them to understand.

We have been teaching them what the word “whoa” means and that they are starting to associate our body language and voice aid to mean the same thing. Hopefully, every time you stopped, you said “whoa”, and every time you walked you said “walk” or “walk on”, or something else that is consistent. When teaching, voice aids are very important and they will transfer on to longeing and finally riding. If my horse knows what walk and whoa mean, when I get up in the saddle they already know what those words mean and I can use softer aids to walk or stop. They will be thinking and even if they get nervous, if we say whoa, they think, “I know what that means” and that keeps them calm and lets them give us a yes answer. We don’t have to haul on their mouths. Better for our horse and better for us.

Ready to work, with my horse’s halter on, long lead shank (boots optional) and gloves for us, we will proceed to teach them to whoa (stand) while we walk around them or back away from them. This is the beginning of our lesson. I prefer to teach this out in the open (obviously in an arena, paddock or round pen). I’ll walk with my horse and ask him to whoa. While he’s stopped, I will then say “whoa”, before I move anywhere to let them know they shouldn’t walk with me. I can say “whoa”, put my hand up, and then I can begin by just changing sides, from their left, to their right side. I can also just back away and again say “whoa” and put my hand up. If my horse starts to walk with me, I will say “whoa”, put my hand up, lean or even take a step (or as many as is needed) to stop them, and then I will put them back to where they were originally standing.

I will then repeat it over again. I will say “whoa” before I move, to tell them I am moving but they should remain where they are until I ask them to move. (Rules…do what I ask and continue, till I ask you to do something else). I will then back away and correct as often as is needed. They will probably want to move with us, so don’t be surprised if you have to correct them many times. How many? As many as is necessary. Here’s where CPP comes in for us. Patience is the key here. The better we teach the basics and take our time and do it right, the quicker our horse will learn the later lessons.

When they have finally stood and are paying attention to you, then ask them to come to you as you have taught them to do in the earlier lessons. Don’t forget to praise them with lots of rubs and kind words.

Now that they are standing while you back away, you can begin to make it more difficult. Start to walk around them and pat them on their backs and hind ends. All the while as you are walking around them, reinforce or remind them to stand with your “whoa” voice aid and your hand, and if they move, just return them to where they were originally standing. First walk around their left side, then come to their front, say whoa, go around to their right side and continue to gently pat them on their back and hind end. All this serves a number of purposes. It gets them to stand, while you move, they must focus, listen and try, and you sack them out or let them know where you are by touching them as you go around.

As they stand better as you move around them, you can then make the distance farther from them. As you walk around them, and your distance from them increases, they get a couple of thoughts. One is they become a little less secure, because you are no longer right there beside them and others think that because you are no longer close, they no longer have to listen and they try to leave. They think because you are farther away they are no longer attached, but they find out they are. It also gets you ready for being a bit further away on the longe line and gets their attention and focus.

This is the most important step. Teaching them to stop and stand.

How many times have you seen someone longeing and say, “whoa” and their horse, not listening, just continues on their merry way. Its probably happened to all of us, but with teaching them to recognize the word “whoa, and reinforcing it with our body position (and hand) we can avoid this problem and have control over our horse at all time. After all, that’s what we are trying to do here. We will continue to have better communication through understanding how our horses think and react to us, using our body and voice and recognizing that horses need to be taught and to have structure in a way that they normally communicate amongst themselves.(Body language) We will continue to gain their trust and respect by asking them to do “something” and correcting them when they give the wrong answer, until they give the correct answer. Remember horses are smart and want to please us, but a lot of the time they just don’t know what we want, so they get frustrated and try to leave because we get frustrated and start to get angry and think “stupid horse” and then things fall apart for all. Horses like calmness and consistency.

We have continued to use our body to block the horses movement and it will be very important to remember that when we longe it is even more important. We will be 10 -30 feet away from them and we will need to understand that we have to use our body ALOT to longe and to get the control that we are striving for to have a safe and happy longe lesson. I was going to continue with the longe lesson but trying to use words alone was proving difficult, so I’ve opted to use a few photos to help explain, but unfortunately I didn’t make enough time before this issue had to go out, so the next newsletter will be only on longeing with photos to hopefully get the points across clearer. Actually I am now thinking of doing a DVD series on these and other lessons, and will keep you informed. There are so many other things I can address in them Until then practice the earlier lessons and this one especially, as I stated, they need to know what whoa means and we can only ask them to do what we have taught them to do.

A few problems that may arise. While we are teaching our horse these things, one of the things we are actually doing is establishing a hierarchy. Just as in a herd of horses they will test you and jockey to find their position, and they may not necessarily want to be below you in the pecking order, so they may continue to walk and be corrected many, many times, to see if you will continue to correct them and if you don’t, they will see that as a weakness on your part and say that you aren’t really worthy. Another thing is that this is work. I don’t know about you, but I would much rather play than work, and horses are the same. They have to think and figure things out and sometimes it’s easier to leave, so they may try that. Just bring them back and start over. They have a job, whether they like it or not. Think about it. Their job is to work maybe an hour a day, 4-5 days a week and they get full pay and benefits…..not bad…I wish I had their job.

Other things that you should pay attention to. If your horse takes a step forward, and you correct them, you’ve said I will let you take a full step, however, if as you see that they lean forward to take that step you actually lean into them or take a step towards them before they take that step, you will have gotten your point across earlier by saying no, you cant even think about moving, and therefore they will learn quicker. The quicker the correction, the quicker they learn, just like the quicker the release from pressure the quicker they learn. Its all about timing, so try to correct as soon as you think they are going to move (your instinct is always right) Its important though to let them square up and be balanced, so don’t go overboard. (Don’t be a dictator) Good luck and have fun

Until then, Walter

If you would like to contact me, please do at, eternaldreamshorse@hotmail.com