Horse Training: Using Long Lines

Many of you may be familiar with the use of long lines for ground driving and training or re-training your horse to respond to the bit. This article is for those who don't know how to use them, or for a review for those who may have not used them in a while.

You need a few pieces of equipment to effectively use long lines in a successful manner.

Our round pen is 50 feet in diameter, wooden boards with sandy gravel and dirt base. A corner of an indoor arena or paddock can be used effectively. However, I do recommend using some sort of barrier to prevent the horse from veering away. Otherwise you may end up running all over the place. In this lesson you want to continue to establish that you are in control. If your horse is dragging you around, then you are NOT in control and he knows it! The trainer in this set of pictures is Everette.

We always begin our training sessions on green youngsters by spending a bit using Monty Roberts' techniques in the round pen. (Join Up(c) and Follow Up(c)) After we have worked the horse or pony in this manner we saddle up and spend a little more time working without lines, just taking a few turns each way in the round pen.

As you can see the long lines pass trough the stirrup irons and are clipped to the snaffle rings. You can do the same with a western saddle, just be sure that no matter what type of stirrups you have, you use the stirrup hobble to keep them close to the horse's body. In this case we have used an extra english stirrup leather. It is passed through each iron and buckled under the horse's barrel.

This is Bonnie's first saddle, first bridle. We started her training just 40 minutes before this photo was taken, we have not worked her before. After the long line session I mounted Bonnie for the first time EVER! I was very brave!

(Continued on next page)