AAoR and R+ Lunging

AAoR Lunging

***Don’t hurt the horse *** Don’t annoy the horse *** Don’t frighten the horse***

The purpose of AAoR Lunging is never to intentionally tire the horse and lunging at speed is to be avoided. When horses are moving on the lunge, there is a risk that the horse may have the freedom to decide to move in a way which is not in the least bit beneficial for them, and the decision to use the lunge as a means of education for the horse must be based on the horses age, temperament, training history, and the environment.  A lot of damage can be done in a short space of time by running horses in circles on the lunge and no benefit comes from chasing horses around in unbalanced circles.  

Lunging is complex and when done well it has an important role to play with the horses’ education, but lunging is not so easy to do well: it is an Art form in itself, which needs education, tuition and hours of carefully evaluated practice to learn.

Sending a horse around in relentless circles is always going to be a bad idea due to damaging strain caused to the horses’ joints and tendons, plus it will adversely affect the horses’ mental attitude to training too.  At the end of a lunge session the horse should not be breathing hard, sweating profusely, or looking anxious as this would indicate that it is becoming a punishing experience physically and mentally for the horse. Lunge work is good for beginning with gaining better basic low level fitness, but there are better ways than the lunge for improving horses’ stamina, endurance or aerobic fitness. There is no place for fear at any part of a horses training life, so the use of strong aversives to drive horses forwards or slow horses down with threats must be avoided on the lunge as well as at all other times too. A horse can feel a fly land anywhere on the body, so use calm, gradual education rather than force to help the horse to understand soft Aids.

The AAoR Lunging differs from BHS style of lunging in that the human remains closer to the horse and is not required to stand in the centre, with a long reaching lunge whip, rotating on the spot while the horse moves on a large circle around them. The AAoR Lunging also differs from the various Natural Horsemanship styles of lunging where the horse is required to make a circle which continues behind the humans’ back, or where a flag or rippling rope is used to keep the horse moving away, sometimes contained within a high sided round pen.

In AAoR Lunge work, the human does not have to remain static in one place but can smoothly change position to be closer or differently aligned to the horses’ body to improve support for the horse where necessary. The human body alignment, posture and positioning provides Body Language as a Primary Aid which helps to explain the Secondary Aids.  It can be appropriate to support the horse by walking closer to the horses’ shoulder, or further back along the body towards the tail towards a long reining position by the hind quarter and variations such as this are designed to open up different possibilities to check and improve the horses’ education while at the same time building beneficial muscle, improving coordination and balance and rehearsing moving between a more forward or more collected manner using increasingly refined Aids which are ultimately transferable to ridden work or used for clarification of postural requests.  

A good time to introduce AAoR Lunging to your horses training repertoire is often when the horse has shown that they understand the Aids taught during their AAoR Groundwork education. Groundwork is almost always a good place to start a horses’ education, whatever their age, and Lunging is often, but not always, the next natural logical progression from Groundwork. At first Lunging can be introduced to the novice horse using only a slightly greater distance from the horse than Groundwork so at first, the horse can remain close enough to reach out and touch finger-tips to their shoulder or rib cage while walking together.

AAoR style of Lunging requires no gadgets, auxiliary side reins or devices and adheres to L.I.M.A. Principles in that it is preferred to use gentle tactile suggestions to ask the horse to move forwards on a circle with us. The lunge cavesson used is the same padded leather cavesson used for Groundwork. The cavesson is definitely not designed to deliberately control using strong pulls against the horses face. If the horse shows that they don’t understand, or are less confident, anxious or even worse becoming afraid, the human must work to resolve the problems using a kind and sympathetic approach, reassuring the horse by walking closer again before perhaps trying to walk a foot or two further away again or changing the environment or approach to support the horses emotional or physical problem better. As a Positive Reinforcement trainer, I use a Bridging Sound exactly at the point when the horse is showing the response I want to see, and I immediately walk over to the horse after the Bridging Sound to deliver the reward. Typically, at first, the Bridging Sound itself will stop the horse moving forwards because the horse has been Classically Conditioned to understand the linked association between Bridging Sound = Reward delivery. This tendency for stopping and waiting for the Reward delivery after the Bridging Sound can be phased out later on in the training process by using Keep Going Signals, though there must be caution using KGS too soon.  It is important that the horse does not show body language or a facial expression suggesting they are not in a good emotional place when the Bridging Sound is used, as linking an unhealthy emotion to a certain behaviour will cause problems later. It is fine to make a mistake now and then of course, but the motto must be “Make Haste Slowly”.

Correct interpretation of the facial expressions and body language is vital here in order to respond suitably and make changes according to the horses’ emotions and I strongly recommend reading a book by Rachael Draaisma entitled “Language Signs and Calming Signals of Horses” in order to avoid falling into the trap of believing all too commonly repeated misinterpretations of the emotions behind the observed behaviours.

First impressions count, so introducing the horse to AAoR lunge work must be done with this in mind, bearing strongly in mind your own posture and demeanour, your vocal intonation, the environment, the horses age and training history. Walking in front of the horse or at the shoulder should feel familiar after Groundwork has already been established. The circle size needs to be placed in the arena away from a perimeter fence and small enough to create a meaningful amount of bend for the horses’ body size and educational level, but not so small that the bend is too difficult for that horse to manage. Increasing the distance away from the horse is gradually achieved so that the horse remains initially at finger-tip arms-length or even closer, but ultimately the horse will be asked to stay as far away as an outstretched human arm combined with schooling whip tickle touch length.  This will give the horse more independence from the human, and the horse will be able to make more choices about their own posture and movement patterns too, which can cause some horses to feel insecure, unbalanced and try to stay closer, or other horses might become anxious and begin to move faster, but with sympathy and skill these moments of anxiety can be quietly worked through until the horse feels more confident  and balanced in their capability without a supporting nearby human. 

The central ring on the padded leather cavesson helps the human to be able to communicate through the lunge line by creating little vibrations, acting as tiny half halts or to gently direct the horses head in a manner already taught when standing closer to the horse during in Groundwork Bending and Stellning.  Keeping the horses nasal bone aligned with the direction of travel on the circle, is very important and using a lightweight cotton or leather lunge line with a small clip on the central cavesson ring helps to reduce inadvertent drag due to the weight of the line while not actively trying to communicate with the horse. One of the reasons why it is very important to ensure that the horse does not look to the outside of the circle while lunging is because it can cause the lower jaw to be wrongly placed relative to the skull which can in turn affect the thoracic spine rotation.  The horse will either tend to fall in on the inside shoulder or out onto the outside shoulder and the horse will be unlikely to bring the inside hip forwards and step properly underneath the body with the hind legs. All of these mistakes will cause problems later on for the horse if not noticed or corrected. 

The AAoR style of Lunging approach uses a schooling whip or a slim twig to point to or lightly touch a body part. The long lash of a schooling whip lags far behind the thought to move it so is difficult to time or place the touches with sufficient accuracy, coupled with the fact that the lunge whip carries the risk of being a perceived threat of unpredictable risks of stinging, flicking touches. This anticipated threat will be more keenly felt if horse has had unpleasant experiences of flicking touches from a long lash before.

The schooling whip Aid pointing towards the horses’ hind quarter at the top or to left or to right of tail are taught to be understood as different communications asking either for more downwards “sit” and folding of the hind legs or for the hind quarters to move to the left or to right and not for indicating more forward speed required. This education or re- education has to be made gradually as soft tactile touches initially in order not to frighten the horse, usually using Groundwork to calmly introduce the new Aids, and this is especially important if they have had unpleasant experiences while lunging,  or are afraid of whips. Horses are remarkable in their ability to accept, forgive and learn new things and provided the new training is presented in an quiet, calm, clear and unhurried manner and they are not made to feel afraid, they will begin to trust that the human means no harm with the thin twig.   

Lunge work is used for improving horses at all stages, from novice to advanced including work in collection and lateral movements. The beauty of lunging is that the horse can be easily observed by the human eye from a little distance which gives a different perspective on how the horses’ co-ordination, rhythm, stride length and balance in movement are all progressing and the horses’ strengths and weaknesses or lateral unevenness may be more obviously identified, provided the human eye is sufficiently educated to see the mistakes as they are happening.

Sometimes solutions for corrections can be made as they arise by minor adjustments during the lunge work, but others may need a different Academic approach to help the horses to find balance in movement.

Variation within the pace and transitions from one pace to another will be valuable exercises for the horse, and horses can be educated in AAoR Lunge work to worked in shoulder in, quarters in, piaffe, passage, as well as working trot, collected canter, working canter, relaxed walk, school walk, and the school halt.

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Please note that there are no AAoR Accredited Certified Trainers residing in UK at present. As I have passed the AAoR Groundwork and Lunge Test and Squire Test, I am offering tuition myself, but I must inform you that I am not an AAoR Accredited Certified Trainer.

 I will look at another aspect of the AAoR by Bent Branderup in another post.

Remember:

There are only three answers you can receive from a horse:

1. I can

2. I can’t

3. I don’t understand

Some good advice:

“Anything that is forced cannot be beautiful” Xenophon.

“Don’t try to impress others, but do try hard to impress your horse!” Bent Branderup

“Who am I in my horses’ eyes?” Bent Branderup

“Two spirits who want to do what two bodies can” Bent Branderup

“Spend time well” Bent Branderup

Message me or email me on Jacquie.flyingfox@btconnect.com if you would like a lesson or to organise a clinic.