SAM TAKES A BIG STEP

Jan 25

            I started Sam today to learn how to lunge. It looked like the wheels were turning as he looked at me like I was an idiot. They have always faced me, which is a common position for a wild horse to take. By facing anything that is strange or possibly dangerous, it can’t sneak up on them and get them. To get him to move on, I needed to use the lunge whip and tap him on the hip to get him to move. I am not using a bridle with a bit. That would be too harsh at this time. I know they are going to try to pull away from me and I don’t want them to pull on their mouths during those episodes. I will start to bit them up in the stalls so they can get used to the bit, but for this I used the be nice halter ( I’m not sure that is what it is called. It is actually a stainless steel oval with a whole at one end. At one time it was called a stud ring, but I use it upside down so the lunge line is on top of the nose. It works like a bosel.)

            Once I convinced Sam to move on when I gave the “Walk On” command, he tried to pull away, but this ring gives me enough strength to keep him from pulling away from me. I don’t have to do anything except hold it . He tried it about six or seven times and threw in rear for good measure and then seemed to accept what I was asking him. I worked with him about 20 minutes in the left direction only. It is tempting to try to do too much at first. The goal for today was to get Sam to move on from the command and keep going until I told him to “Whoa” Surprisingly, he figured it out pretty quickly. I have had horses that were supposedly trained to lunge do much worse. There are several evasions that every horse tries and he tried them as well, however, because he doesn’t have a history of success with them, once I stopped each one he gave it up. That doesn’t mean he won’t try them again later, but for now he doesn’t think they work.

            In the end, Sam walked when I told him to and stayed at a walk around a 15 meter circle twice. When I asked him to stop, he did it without too much repeating. I was pumped! He is the oldest and I hope to get him started first.

            When we were done, I walked him back into the barn, put him in the crossties and gave him his cookies. He was calm and went back to eating breakfast when I turned him loose in his stall. That is the goal when training. He will now think about what we did and tomorrow he should do it with less confusion(I hope).