Equine Lungeing & the Performance of your Horse

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Equine Lungeing The Performance of Your Horse
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Naturally, this will be more important in some
areas than in others. Of all the muscles in a
horses body, among the least well-developed are
often those underneath the saddle, and behind
the withers. Its these muscles which provide
the lift so beloved by equestrians. Theyre
also responsible for bearing the saddle and the
rider. However well your saddle might fit your
horse, and however svelte a jockey you might be,
your weight (and that of your saddle) will
impede bloodflow to these muscles while youre
riding, which in turn will inhibit development.
If youre looking to improve the physical
performance of a horse, then its worth
considering what lessons we might learn from
training in humans. Human athletes,
whatever their chosen discipline, achieve their
physical prowess with a wide variety of
different exercises. Though Mo Farah might spend
a lot of his time running from place to place,
hell also occasionally alternate with
resistance exercises. A professional footballer
thats in the midst of a match will move in such
a way thats optimal for moving efficiently
around the pitch but during training, theyll
raise their knees up to their chests while
running, stand on one leg while holding the
other behind them, and run back and forth
repeatedly between sets of cones. The reasons
behind this is simple in order to get all of
the muscle groups into a condition that they
might be useful in a real situation, its
important to really exert them using exercises
designed to hyper-stress them. This is
especially important for rarely-used, though
crucial, balancing muscles. If your quadriceps
are gigantic and enormously strong, but the
remainder of the muscles in the legs are puny,
then injury is sure to result sooner or later. To
borrow another human analogy, there are few
real situations where youll need to do a
hundred press-ups in a row, but being able to do
it will surely improve many (directly and
indirectly) related aspects of your life.
Effective Lungeing Lungeing is an exercise which
is performed when youre leading the horse
around using a lunge rope. A Lungeing routine is
a great way to acclimatise a hot horse before
you ride it and its also vital in building
good habits. The back should be hollow, and the
head held high. If you dont have the correct
posture, then the horse will just be compounding
old habits rather than building beneficial new
ones and the longer these old habits persist,
the more ingrained theyll become. Discourage
your horse from leaning forward, and ensure that
its back is arched. This will help to develop
your horses neglected core muscles, which will
allow it to carry a rider more effectively, and
achieve a superior balance.
While youre Lungeing your horse from ground
level, youll be able to observe its movements.
Make sure that you take note of any
motions that arent conducive to what youre
trying to achieve, and then correct them.
Use your Lungeing sessions as an opportunity
to reinforce simple commands as this will
make future sessions a great deal easier and more
effective.
The horse as an athlete So how do we apply this
logic to horses? The answer lies in training
them to perform movements to which they arent
accustomed. The arena for this sort of
performance is a Lungeing session, which a
skilled equestrian will use to build up each
individual muscle in a horses body, while
keeping the whole in an effective balance.
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In order to do Lungeing properly, youll need to
protect both yourself and the horse youll be
training. Give your horse boots and bandages
around the lower legs, and be sure that
youre wearing gloves, a hat, and boots. In order
to get the best from the session, begin with a
gradual warm-up, and end with a gradual cool-
down. This will allow the horse to push itself
further during the actual Lungeing, and allow
for better recovery afterwards.
Symmetry A horse thats undergone a regime of
lunges will have a much smaller difference in
stride length between the two reins. This is
down to the improved balance thats required
during a strict Lungeing session. If your horse
is going to be competing in dressage, then this
is especially important.
In Conclusion In order to transform your horse
from a merely effective animal into a real
competitor, a good Lungeing routine is
essential. This means that learning to properly
control each session and get the best from it is
arguably as important for the horse as anything
youll do in the saddle. Allocate your mental
resources accordingly in each Lungeing session
and re-enforcing good behaviours. The overall
result should be a horse thats more supple,
more balanced, and easier to control and command.
Horses are intelligent creatures, and theyll
benefit from mental stimulation. Be sure to mix
up your Lungeing routine frequently, in order
to keep your horse guessing. Test the pace and
be a ruthless judge if your horse is dawdling,
then let it know.
One crucial (and often neglected) component of a
good Lungeing session is the need to improve
your own voice aids. Keep everything you say
simple, clear and consistent. If your horse is
confused, then they wont be recognising
patterns and they therefore wont be learning.
For safetys sake, youll want to be sure that
youre able to stop your horse and keep it under
control at a moments notice a sharp no
should be a crucial part of your vocabulary.
What Does Lungeing Do? If youre doing it
properly, rather than just leading your horse
around a paddock for 20 minutes of pointless,
then youll notice significant improvements in
your horses performance, in a number of key
respects. Stride Length When the muscles in a
horses back are properly developed, theyll be
able to lift their legs higher more easily. As a
direct consequence, theyll be able to move
their legs further with each stride, and thereby
achieve a faster pace.
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Beeston Animal Health Ltd., Whitchurch
Road, Beeston Castle, Tarporley, Cheshire, CW6
9NJ