Lunging. Do you lunge? How do you lunge?

In tack or not
Lead line, lunge line or liberty?
Round pen, arena, or a field?
Do you move in big circles with them or stand in place and have them circle you?

Do you lunge to watch them move out? For fitness? To get the buck out?

Seems like there are a million reasons and as many ways to do it, but we all use the same word to describe really different ways of what we do.

I like to teach new students to lunge so that they can learn about connection before they ride. So whether it’s a halter and lunge line or liberty in a round pen, I’d like them to start to feel how their body language and energy interacts with the horse and can achieve different results. 

I personally like to lunge a horse to see how they go. Especially good if you are alone and want to look for lameness- Usually at liberty in a round pen. How are they moving out and are they paying attention? How good is their stop? All great things to know when evaluating a new horse.

In general, for me, it doesn’t last more than 10 minutes. And that’s never 10 minutes of being chased. It’s working one on one with the horse to look at coordinating our speed and our direction and of course, our whoa

I tend to like to use it as a tool for teaching or evaluating a horse.

Picture of a volunteer working w Booker at our local forest in a big field. He adopted out earlier this year