Longeing your horse is a practical exercise that can be applied in a variety of situations. People might decide to longe their horse for multiple reasons, whether as a warm-up, soundness check, or a way to exercise your horse without getting in the saddle.
Bud Lyon, multiple world champion and Ride TV Coach, takes you through his longeing process and explains how to make this exercise effective, efficient, and a positive experience for both you and your horse.
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Maintain Control
When I longe my horses, I don’t want them to jump away or launch into a gallop when I let them know it’s okay to go around in a circle. I want them to exercise some self-control and discipline in the beginning. I find that if you let those horses come out and you wave your arms and they jump away, they will learn to do that, and it becomes a habit. That can get somebody hurt or injured, or allow your horse to break away and get away from you. We’re letting them do this, and we want them to be horses and to be relaxed and confident. We don’t want them to learn they can run, jerk, and pull away from someone.
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Encourage Controlled Forward Movement
We’re going to move back here toward his hip and hindquarters and encourage him to go forward. We’re not going to throw a bunch of line at him and let him run crazy, just step back to his hip and encourage him to go forward in a circle. As he does, I’ll let the rope out a bit and let him go out further.
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Keep His Head to the Inside
If he lets his head down, I don’t want to let my rope get low so he can get a front leg over the longe line and get in an accident. When I see him put his head down, I let him, but I lift up on the rope so he doesn’t get a front leg over it.” “What I do prefer is that he keeps his head to the inside of the circle a little bit. If he turns his head to the outside of the circle as he’s longeing, then he drops his shoulder and has the ability to lean in, pull, and get away from me.
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Take Time to Evaluate
I’m watching his legs, evaluating his soundness level. We’re coming off the World Show, so we had a big event going on… so we’re just paying attention to how he moves and travels, looking for signs of soundness issues. We always want to put the health of the horse first and do right by the horse. If there are signs of health or lameness issues, we want to address that quickly.
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Relaxed but Controlled
Now we’re going to encourage him to move out… I want him to be relaxed but also disciplined. But I also want him to be controlled, I want him to have manners and respect. I don’t want him dragging me around or getting into a tug-of-war contest with him.” “We’re just going to continue asking him to go forward, stretch his legs, and work the kinks out.
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Avoid Pulling on the Longe Line
Right there he wants to pull to the outside of the circle a bit, so I use my left hand to pull him to the inside a little. Any time that horse starts to look to the outside of the circle or pull against me, I will guide him back to the inside. Ideally, I’d like to see any horse go around in the circle without tight tension on the rope between my hand and their halter.
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Maintain Fundamentals on the Ground or in the Saddle
I didn’t pull on him to stop; I said the word ‘whoa.’ I want him to listen to that word even when I’m not on his back. If he kept going around and ignored my voice command, I would have pulled him to the inside a little until his feet stopped. Even though we’re not on his back or training for one specific thing, we want to emphasize our fundamentals, discipline, respect, control, listening to the word ‘whoa,’ and moving away from us when needed. Just because we’re on the ground doesn’t mean we can’t emphasize those same concepts.
He can shake his head and hop a little if he wants, but he can’t try to get away from me or drag me around this arena. If I draw back with this right hand and pull his nose, it should come toward me, and his body should follow.
▶️ Watch the full video lesson.
