5 Sticky Note: How to lunge safely

Lungeing the horse safely is the foundation to a successful training and to building and maintaining trust to your horse.

A couple safety hints:

• Make sure you lunge on a save ground. Best is in an arena or a lungeing ring. Lungeing on the field you need to check the flooring well.
• There should be a suitable surrounding fence
• Make sure your side reins are used proparly
• Good connection to the horses mouth – having lunge lines can be dangerous for you and horse

See also this video by Callie King on Lungeing Safty.

1. Make sure to not tangle up your lunge line, instead have even loops or those getting smaller 
2. When letting out the lunge line, don’t drop the lunge line on the ground 
3. One hand controls the lunge line, the other one supports while still navigating the wipe 

Awareness of the horse and body positioning for safety

1. One of the biggest factors for accidents, ist the horse gets over excited – so really work on going slow first, in control – then you can add in the faster gates.
2. Especially while you’re still practicing handling the line, keep things slower 
3. Be aware of the horse: it’s body posture, check on control of the head or what the horse might feel doing next