Section A, Part 2: TECHNIQUE

Start by taking your horse into the Round Pen and simply turning him loose. He may just stand there, which is fine, or he may move around, which is also fine. When the horse is calm and settled, give him a bit of a rub or a scratch and say some nice words to him, then step back a little. If the horse begins to follow you (this is fairly natural behaviour if the horse accepts you as his leader) gently discourage this by taking a bold step towards the horse's nose, which should have the effect of causing him to turn his head away, and normally the body will follow the head.

Stand in the center of the circle with your body almost 90-degrees from the horse's shoulder, but slightly more towards the hind-quarters. If you have a lead rope with you, hold the metal clip in your left hand, and about a foot or so of the rope in your other hand if you have one. If you only have one hand, you may find using the rope to be a bit tricky, so it might be best to use the "no-rope" technique which I will describe in a moment. It is up to you whether or not you will use voice commands - some trainers like to use their voice as they get the horse to change gaits, in the hope that the horse will learn to associate the command with the action.

Gently begin to swing the rope end-over-end, like a windmill, towards the horse's body (but do not hit the horse with the rope). The horse should begin to move away from you, but if not, simply increase the speed of the rope until the horse does move away. If the horse still stands there, you can try making sharp noises, and if that doesn't work you have a very unresponsive horse on your hands.

You now have set up a situation where you can control the horse's movement by the position of your body and the speed and position of the rope. If you want the horse to move faster, get slightly behind the movement, move your right hand a bit further out from your body sideways, and maybe increase the speed of the rope slightly, reverting to your previous stance as soon as the horse changes gaits. To slow the horse down, get slightly in front of the movement (note that being behind or in front of the movement refers to your body position in relation to the 90-degree angle from the shoulder, if you are in front of the 90-degree angle, then you are in front of the movement, which will usuall cause the horse to slow down, stop, or change direction).

DO NOT EVER PUT YOURSELF IN THE PATH OF A MOVING HORSE - that is NOT what being in front of the movement means!

When you want to turn the horse, quickly move into a position forward of the shoulder and hold onto the clip end of the rope, flinging the other end out into the space in front of the horse, this should cause him to change directions.

To perform the same actions without a rope, use your hands, or hand, to make gestures towards the horse which will cause him to move away from you. This involves holding your hands near your waist about the same width apart was your hips, with the fingers spread slightly apart, and move your hands out from your body by about 12 to 15 inches, repeating this gesture until the horse moves in the desired direction and at the desired speed or gait. Body position becomes even more important in communicating with the horse if you do not use a rope. You will need to use your body to block, move and direct the horse, sometimes outstrectching your arms to make "shepherding" movements.

The reason that I prefer to use this method, rather than a lungeing rein, is that it allows the horse full freedom of movement and does not interfere with his movement, and you are using your body to communicate with the horse in exactly the same way that another dominant horse would in a herd situation - you are directly imitating the natural body language signals identified as the body check, lunge, and drive. These are all aggressive movements, but they are more acceptable to the horse than "conventional" training aids (such as whips), because the horse has an innate understanding of these movements and I really don't think that the horse's feelings will be hurt as a result of your "aggression" because it is just quite natural for horses to boss each other around, and you are playing the role of another horse. Even so, you should always make sure that at the end of a training session you provide the horse with reassurance, comfort and friendship. After a while, you will find that the horse understands the difference between this "psuedo-aggression" and real aggression, and will know that you mean him no harm.

When you use a whip, I think that is always viewed as real aggression, because it is such a sinister thing and the only body-language signal that it even slightly resembles when used is the "strike with the foreleg", which is definitely a highly aggresive movement - much more of a direct attack than a body-check or lunge.

So as you can see, you literally are lungeing when you use this method.

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