OFTEN WHEN WE THINK OF LONGEING WE THINK OF the horse running around us, wearing themselves out. While that certainly does happen, if we approach longeing from a balance standpoint, the result is much different.
First we must understand the natural balance of the horse.
Horses fall toward the direction they turn, it is natural for them. This works fine if the horse is free to be, well, a horse. However, once you put weight on their back and turn a circle it changes how the horse needs to function. The goal of longeing is to teach the horse to have even weight in it’s shoulders as it turns the circle. This allows the horse to stretch the topline and lift its back which is the only way a horse is going to carry the weight of the rider comfortably, in any discipline . When we longe the horse, we are teaching the horse the balance required to carry weight, long before the horse is required to do so.
See this article for more about the importance of straightness in the horse; classicalsolutions.wordpress.com/2017/08/30/first-blog-post/
Longeing starts with the foals first notion of leading. I am very careful with teaching the baby horse to lead, the first ideas are the ones that stick. For me, it’s not so much about getting the foal to lead, but how it learns to react to the pressures of the halter, line and human. Obviously a positive response is desired! So we must foster that idea as soon as we can.
Here is a video of a 1 month old filly learning to lead, which really, is learning to longe. To lengthen the outside of their body as they turn and follow the guiding hand instead of resisting it. This is one of my favorite videos, I also worked with her mother and she is clearly helping me!
The longeing caveson
The longe caveson is an essential tool to get a good result when longeing. Because it is connected to the top of the nose it has a more direct action on the head and neck than just using a halter. It also has the action of lengthening the neck once the shoulders are carrying even weight (you can see this in a video further down.)
Here is a short video about the use of the caveson:
A common problem when we start to longe our horse is they want to fall in toward us and rush around. Often the reaction of the handler is to want to slow the horse down. It is not wrong to want the horse to slow down but it must happen because the horse has improved their balance, not because we made the horse slow down.
Here is a video of a 3 year old lusitano mare showing imbalance upon initial longeing.
This horse is rushing because she is falling in, so my focus is going to be for her to move her inside shoulder away from me by moving my body toward her inside shoulder at certain parts of the circle. A second person to act as the whip can also help the horse understand they must move the inside shoulder away from the center of the circle and not toward it.
Here you can see the results mid way through the training session. She is starting put less weight on her inside shoulder, getting closer to even weight in her shoulders which naturally allows the horse to stretch through the topline. This is essential for the horse to comfortably carry weight. The next step is to ask her to lengthen the outside of her body without falling back to the inside.
Another problem some horses have is to fall out, or away from the center of the circle. Here is an 8 year old Andalusian mare showing that problem. Note: when the horse is falling away from the center, the inside hind is crossing too much to the outside. It should be coming up toward the inside front.
To correct this we must teach the horse when pressure is applied, they first follow that pressure (back to the idea with the foal) instead of leaning on it. To do this, the horse must go forward (while the handler stands still, not following the horse to the outside) until he can scribe the circle without falling out. Once they can do that they will be able to relax the neck and come through the topline. It is often helpful to use the corner of the arena to help prevent the horse from falling away from us while pushing forward, this teaches the horse to track up on the inside hind when we push instead of crossing to the outside. A second person to gently act as the whip is also helpful if the horse continues to stop when you stand still while longeing.
Here is a video a little further along in the session. You can see the right shoulder starting to follow the line of the circle and the neck releasing down. With consistent practice, the horse will no longer fall out and will stay in a more even balance in the shoulders, thus building the topline and allowing us to ask more from the hind legs.
Longeing is an excellent way to diagnose where your horses imbalances are and help them learn how to balance themselves before carrying a rider. It is a staple for training any horse to be balanced.
A side note, I do not use side reins to put the neck down, if you do this, the horse never learns to carry even weight in their shoulders. Often, the horse needs its neck in different positions to solve their balance problems.
Kim Robare
