My trainer has told me to always start out at a jog when I lunge my 12 y.o. mare.  I got to thinking yesterday that we humans usually stretch and warm up before we exercise.  Wouldn't horses need to do the same thing?  Especially if they've been standing around in a stall?  Will talk about this w/trainer, but what you do y'all think/do??  Start right out at a trot/jog, walk your horse??

Thanks,

Mary 

I don't see why you should "always" start at a jog, but I also don't see where lots of walking is necessary either.  I'm in decent shape and walking before exercise (running, biking, etc) does nothing for me as far as stretching or warmup (and I have a desk job, so I sit all day).  Stretching does, as does a relaxed jog to get the blood moving.  If you are concerned about warmup I'd say you should start working on some stretching exercises with him before lunging and then start him at a brisk walk or a relaxed jog/trot I would consider that a warm up for a horse in reasonable shape.

Bassclef- I usually try to lunge my horse at a trot then a lope for about 10 minutes to warm her up. I find this helps calm her down before I get in the saddle. She is a half arab so tends to be hot this time of year. I have read that it depends totally on the horse and rider as to whether lunging is important or not. If you have a real calm horse, then mounting right away won't hurt anything. PJ

Oh, she definitely needs to be lunged before I get on her.  She's a dominant mare type (I call her The Dominatrix) and needs the lunging to get her focused and ready to work and tuned into me.  I forgot to talk to my trainer at our last lesson about going straight into a jog rather than warming up first.  Next week, I guess.

Mary 

Actually, even humans don't need much warmup before they move at a moderate speed.  Trotting is easier than walking on the longe because a lot of horses simply won't keep walking.  They'll quit and come into the center.  Then the warmup session turns into a major event.  I doubt that it will do her any harm to go straight to the trot unless you're keeping her trotting for 20 solid minutes.  If you've watched horses in the pasture, you'll see that they can go from snacking to 60 in zero seconds flat!    Besides, you had to lead her at the walk from wherever you tacked her up to wherever you're longeing her, right?  And unless she's a stall-bound captive, she does considerable walking on her own.  I wouldn't worry about it.

Personally, I don't like lungeing my horse routinely before I ride her (and I have a spooky and hot girl, believe me). Routine lungeing gets boring, is uninteresting for the horse, and is the cause of major problems. If youre horse hasn't figured out yet that the rules don't change if she's fresh or not, maybe she needs a bit more professional training?

If your trainer insist upon lungeing her, I wouldn't be too concerned about going straight into the trot. A walk does nothing for a horse. They spend their lives walking (as do we humans). Stretching will do the most good for her, and trotting will do some good stuff for her also. I would also suggest "intervals" to keep her thinking. More than likely, the reason she's so hot is because she has been stalled and wants some thinking games. Ask her to trot for a few circles, slow her to a light jog or walk, then back up to trot and to canter, and vary it as you wish. This will do much more for her exercise regime than just trotting as warm up, plus it will keep her interested and focused on you.

Another way to lunge is free lungeing (if you can). Instead of lungeing her with a line, let her loose in the arena, round pen, or a small pasture and use the same tools (lunge whip, lead line, vocal command, etc) to send her away. This switch up will get her attention, get her warmed up, and get her focused on you, while keeping her interested. She'll be able to work herself where she feels comfortable (unless she's comfortable at a walk, and then you can motivate her :D). It will also build your relationship and communication with her to a new level as she learns to read you. This interaction is similar to a lead mare directing her herd and will establish dominance.

 Best of luck. 

 Longeing doesn't have to be boring.  It also doesn't have to be just going around in a circle for 10 minutes to cool down a hot horse.  There are lots of actvities that can be done on the longe that add to the horse's knowledge base.  

I don't longe before every ride, and generally Zip is the only one of the horses I longe regularly at all.  For him it is part of the routine, and it gives me a heads-up about his attitude for the day.  He's by no means a "hot" horse.  He does, however, have his moods.  If I suspect he's in one that's likely to land me face-planted in the footing, I start with longe work.  There's an immediate transformation from giraffe on crack to "What next, Master?" that I like very much.    

The other horses only work on the longe if there's a reason, like I'm trying to teach one of them something that he's not getting under saddle, or my back is out, or there isn't time for a full tack-up-and-ride because the weather is about to get bad (again!).  Still, it's a valuable training tool.  Free longeing works, but you have to work with the horse to get him to mind you when there's no line connection.  A round pen works for that, but if you're going to free-longe in the ring (like I often do), teaching him to stay in a circle around you so you can accomplish more than just letting him run around at will is important.  Zip's been at this long enough so that he'll free longe around me even in the pasture totally to voice commands.  It takes time to get there, but it's worth it.  

This was, coincidentally, today's topic from the Superstars of Horse Training newsletter.  I figured it was worth posting under this thread.

 

    Lungeing.

    It's valuable.

    Some trainers use it.

    Some don't.

    I do.

    Should you?

    Depends.

    On what?

    How you view lungeing.

    I know trainers who see lungeing as
a forced control.

    Those trainers want to control the
horse's obedience through "just" his brain and nothing else.

    Should you agree with that?

    Maybe...maybe not.

    I see it this way.

    When I lunge a horse, I'm still getting earned obedience from him - it's still getting into his brain that I have control.

    That's what I'm after anyway.

    Lungeing can serve many purposes.

    One is this.

    When we filmed Danie and Doug Hewlett
for the "Reining" DVD, Danie started off by lungeing the horse.

    Why?

    Because she's using lungeing as a tool
to check her horse.

    Just like a scientist would use a microscope for his tool of the trade...Danie and Doug use lungeing as "their" microscope.

    Your horse will reveal many things to you if you lunge him.

    For instance, Danie says she wants her horse to walk quietly around her when she first starts.

    Why?

    First, a quiet horse is a calm horse.  A calm horse learns better, is more cooperative, and therefore trains better. (and is also safer)

    But if he's walking around, swishing his tail, shaking his head up and down, his ears are pinning,...then you need to figure out what's going on.

    If he's walking around you quietly, then that's a good sign he's okay with you, he's likely not in pain, and so on.

    Next, while Danie lunges the horse she will ask him to walk, canter and lope.

    When she says "walk"...he walks.

    When she says "canter"...he canters.

    And so on.
    
    So guess what?

    If he doesn't walk, canter, or lope when you ask him to...then you need to fix that.

    Why?

    Cuz he ain't gonna know it when you're in the saddle.

    You want to teach it from the ground first.

    Get all the confusing stuff outta the way and get him knowing it before you get on.

    That's just one of the valuable things about lungeing.

Personally, I think walking is fine to do at first, but many horses are fresh coming out of the stalls and I've not seen any harm by going into a jog immediately to warm up. Horses are prey critters and would jump up and run on a moment's notice in the wild (yes, I know your horse isn't wild, LOL) so I figure a little jog isn't harmful, esp if it keeps them from cantering and bucking in that small circle. Trotting will let them loosen up and get their minds focused on you. Besides, surely you walked her out of that stall to the grooming/tack area, then walked to the training area.

 

I guess what I'm saying is a jog is harmless to start out with, IME, as long as your horse is normal with no major soundness issues (that should keep her from being longed in the first place).

JMFriedman:

 Longeing doesn't have to be boring.  It also doesn't have to be just going around in a circle for 10 minutes to cool down a hot horse.  There are lots of actvities that can be done on the longe that add to the horse's knowledge base.  

I don't longe before every ride, and generally Zip is the only one of the horses I longe regularly at all.  For him it is part of the routine, and it gives me a heads-up about his attitude for the day.  He's by no means a "hot" horse.  He does, however, have his moods.  If I suspect he's in one that's likely to land me face-planted in the footing, I start with longe work.  There's an immediate transformation from giraffe on crack to "What next, Master?" that I like very much.    

The other horses only work on the longe if there's a reason, like I'm trying to teach one of them something that he's not getting under saddle, or my back is out, or there isn't time for a full tack-up-and-ride because the weather is about to get bad (again!).  Still, it's a valuable training tool.  Free longeing works, but you have to work with the horse to get him to mind you when there's no line connection.  A round pen works for that, but if you're going to free-longe in the ring (like I often do), teaching him to stay in a circle around you so you can accomplish more than just letting him run around at will is important.  Zip's been at this long enough so that he'll free longe around me even in the pasture totally to voice commands.  It takes time to get there, but it's worth it.  

I always lunge first, to check his attitute and his soundness.  At 12, I''d advise letting her warm up a good 5 to 10 minutes.  Warming up muscles prevents injury.  Mine is a bigger horse, and needs to lunge on a bigger circle If he's acting fresh, I lunge him for longer periods, but not to just run him around in circles.  I do lots of walk/trot transitions, build up to trot/canter transitiions, and send him in both directoins.  Then, if I don't ride, I walk him another 5 to 10 minutes to cool down and protect his muscles.  If  I do ride, I walk another 5 to 10 minutes before the serious work.   If I do ride, I always end the ride by walking him a good 10 to 15 minutes to cool him down and protect the muscles.

 Your trainer only has so much time to give to your lesson, and doesn't want to spend that time lunging.  Be ahead of the game and warm your horse up before the trainer gets there.   

QHAllAround:

JMF,

Being able to lunge a horse in a circle in an open area is quite an achievement in communication!  I've heard of people being able to do this (unfortunately never seen it first hand), and I've wondered how they even begin to teach something like that.  It's out of my range of comprehension, I guess because while I've been able to ride horses saddleless and bridleless I haven't really been able to get communication and response at a distance with no contact.

Anyway, I'm not going to go try it tomorrow, so details are not necessary, but I'd love it if you had time to maybe explain the basics a little.

Thanks!

 

QH, believe me, it wasn't something I'd ever thought of trying before a mare offered it to me!  She was a horse I had a rather poor relationshp with.  She was new to the herd, and I thought she simply disliked me for no particular reason.  She'd go to great lengths to keep the other horses away from me in the pasture, which annoyed me greatly.  Long story short, one day I decided to work on a bond with her and went to the pasture with very good thoughts in my head and a halter and lead in my hand.  This is a five-acre field with tree lines breaking it up, so I figured I'd be in for a long day just walking her down till she quit and I could catch her.  But when I reached the edge of her comfort zone, she turned toward me (you know how that goes, right?), and I stopped and held up the halter and talked to her nicely.  SHE started walking around me.  I was able to stop her and reverse her using body language.  Halter up, she walked.  Halter down, she stopped.  It was the innate nervous curiosity that drives all horses that was making her do that.  After a few minutes, she turned and waited and I haltered her.  We were friends after that.  No more silliness.

So I figured if Dolly, who trusted NO ONE was able to do that, then Zip, who thinks I'm his personal servant, should be an easy sell.  LOL  He's really the only one other than the mini who gets a lot of work on the longe.  They both work with me this way now.

But I'll say up front that there's no shortcut.  It's a step-by-step process, and you can't cut corners.  I STILL won't try free-longeing Zip in, say, the hay field with traffic whizzing by because he might get distracted and decide to visit the cows across the street.    But he's got this whole routine so embedded in his mind that when (I was going to say "if", but that would be too kind) he dumps me, I  use the same voice commands to get him to come and stand by me or walk around me while I check my teeth and dust myself off.  Repetition, repetition, repetition!

I started in the round pen.  No line, of course, and standard JL pressure/release methods.  I added the clicker and treats to speed up and really cement the learning process.  We did the usual inside/outside turns to body cues, then added voice commands.  The whole thing takes as long as it takes, depending on the horse.  By the time I had Zip and Duke working well in the pen and doing tricks after their longeing exercises (they LOVE their tricks!), they couldn't wait to do it anytime, anywhere.  LOLOL 

 The ring is considerably bigger--100 x 150--and I really don't like wasting my energy running after horses (I'm old, you know).  I started by turning Zip loose in the ring with my clicker in hand and my treat bag at my waist.  I don't use a longe whip in the round pen, but I do in the ring.  Actually, a dressage whip is fine too.  Either is just an arm extension that makes the body language clearer.  

At first I just let Zip run around wherever he wanted, then called him in to me.  The farther from me he got, the harder I'd drive him forward with the whip and commands.  When he came in, I'd click/treat, let him rest and process for a minute, then send him out again.  Gradually he figured out that it was easier on him if he stayed near me.  A circle is the logical choice for the horse at that point.  I asked for just one or two circles at first and worked up to a full-out longe pattern, changing directions on cue using both voice and body position commands.  

If the horse is halfway smart (and most are smarter than they let on), they really do figure this out pretty quickly.  Mine have all been round-penned and longed at least briefly, so the going around me in a circle thing is pretty familiar.  That's key.  The whip sends them out; the clicker pulls them in.  Voila!   Laziness--theirs and mine--is behind most of my training successes.  

If you do try this, I think you'll be surprised at how much differently you'll see your horse.

Sweet!  Thanks for the write up.

QHAllAround:

...need a horse....

 

 I'm going to go out on a limb here and risk my reputation to state unequivocally that the biggest deterrant to equine clicker training is not having a horse right there with you.  LOLOL  Definitely not something you can phone in.  

On the other hand, if you're horse-free at the moment, go get a clicker and a bag of M&M's and grab the nearest three-year-old child and just watch what you can get him to do!  Back in the SpEd Dark Ages, we used that combo with autistic kids to get them to make eye contact.  Worked every time!

QH, it really IS that simple.  Trust me.  I wouldn't lie to you. 

Okay. . . I would, but I'm not on this occasion.  

I hate the "NH" label--let's face it, nothing we do with our horses is in any way natural for them--but as a psych major I spent many long hours in the rat lab, which taught me that rats are not shy about filling your lab coat pockets with urine and ***, and that if you understand what the animal wants, you can use its own brain to get it to do what YOU want.  The "natural" part is that you're using the animal's nature to manipulate his responses.  The clicker is just a more precise way of telling the animal that he guessed right about the behavior you were trying to elicit.  It's like yelling, "THAT!  What you JUST DID!  YAY!!" without looking like (more of) an idiot in front of the Snooty Barn Diva.  

So once you get that horses are 1) always hungry, 2) basically lazy, and 3) looking for a safe place to be so they don't get eaten, the rest is a piece of cake (or, in this case, a chunk o' carrot).  

Not to make this longer than necessary, but one aside:  After 47 years of this stuff, I really believe that the biggest problem humans have is that they want everything to happen NOW.  We move around too much, too fast, too loudly, and without waiting to see what the first thing we did might cause in the way of intriguing behaviors in the animal (or spouse, or children, or co-workers) we're trying to train.  And we're ego-centric, so we think if WE know what we want, and the Other manages to do it even once, then THEY know what we want and will be happy to give it to us whenever we ask for it.  HA!   I'll bet late at night the horses whisper about us behind our backs, we're such jerks sometimes.

JMFriedman:

 I'm going to go out on a limb here and risk my reputation to state unequivocally that the biggest deterrant to equine clicker training is not having a horse right there with you.  LOLOL  Definitely not something you can phone in.  

On the other hand, if you're horse-free at the moment, go get a clicker and a bag of M&M's and grab the nearest three-year-old child and just watch what you can get him to do!  Back in the SpEd Dark Ages, we used that combo with autistic kids to get them to make eye contact.  Worked every time!