Humane treatment of Horses?

[SunnyCalifornia]

I am not a horse person, nor do I know ANYTHING about training horses, and I witnessed something today, that seemed a bit strange.... Just wondering if any of you horse folk can tell me what was going on...

A man had a beautiful black horse, saddled up, but he was not on it. He had it by a lead, and had a whip in the other hand. He had the horse in the middle of our dirt road, and the horse was going in circles around him. He would crack the horse with his whip every now and then. The horse seemed agitated, and reared up a couple times. After a few circles the horse would stop, and stand in front of the man. Then the whip and the circling would begin again. They were not advancing down the road, they stayed in the same place while this was going on.

Is this normal training of a horse?

 

[Momto3]

Yes that is VERY normal horse training, called lunging.

 

[itsjustjen]

Second the lunging.

 

[SunnyCalifornia]

Thanks! I'm glad I didn't jump to any conclusions! It looked very strange to someone (like me) who had no idea what was going on!

 

[itsjustjen]

Quote:
You might be down right scared watching me then! I have to be firm when lunging my 5 yr old who has a very short attention span and an even shorter temper! When he decides he has had enough circles and will start trying to go backwards. I then have to pop the whip on the ground to get his attention which makes him slide backwards even faster and occasionly he will crow up ( tiny rear that is maybe 2 ft off the ground ) . When he realizes I'm not letting go, he gives in and we go back to circles for a few and then it starts all over again. He was a rescue we adopted and is still in the learning process of how things actaully work when a human is holding the rope.

 

[spiritdance]

Quote:
You might be down right scared watching me then! I have to be firm when lunging my 5 yr old who has a very short attention span and an even shorter temper! When he decides he has had enough circles and will start trying to go backwards. I then have to pop the whip on the ground to get his attention which makes him slide backwards even faster and occasionly he will crow up ( tiny rear that is maybe 2 ft off the ground ) . When he realizes I'm not letting go, he gives in and we go back to circles for a few and then it starts all over again. He was a rescue we adopted and is still in the learning process of how things actaully work when a human is holding the rope.

Wow! You have my horse's twin!!

My 4 yo bay gelding - also a rescue - has the same short attention span. We've done groundwork until I'm ready to hurl, and he's slowly getting past some abuse issues as well as being a stud until we got him, but man, am I ready to move forward a bit! He's the toughest, stubbornest equine I've dealt with to date, and that includes the donkeys and mules I've worked with! The only thing that keeps me from turning him into glue (jk) is that he's also the biggest clown in the pasture. Just when I'm ready to ring his neck he'll do something that has me holding my sides laughing. As my husband says, if all he ever does is make me laugh like that, he's worth his oats. Oh, well ... thus goes the adventure called life ...

 

[Kansaseq]

In high school, I had a somewhat hot thoroughbred gelding. After having him run off with me, I decided that the smart thing to do was longe him for 15 minutes before getting on. It took the edge off of him and gave me a much nicer ride

And by the way, the whip is more for sound and encouragement; people don't actually hit the horse with it. At least I never did.

 

[itsjustjen]

Quote:
You might be down right scared watching me then! I have to be firm when lunging my 5 yr old who has a very short attention span and an even shorter temper! When he decides he has had enough circles and will start trying to go backwards. I then have to pop the whip on the ground to get his attention which makes him slide backwards even faster and occasionly he will crow up ( tiny rear that is maybe 2 ft off the ground ) . When he realizes I'm not letting go, he gives in and we go back to circles for a few and then it starts all over again. He was a rescue we adopted and is still in the learning process of how things actaully work when a human is holding the rope.

Wow! You have my horse's twin!!

My 4 yo bay gelding - also a rescue - has the same short attention span. We've done groundwork until I'm ready to hurl, and he's slowly getting past some abuse issues as well as being a stud until we got him, but man, am I ready to move forward a bit! He's the toughest, stubbornest equine I've dealt with to date, and that includes the donkeys and mules I've worked with! The only thing that keeps me from turning him into glue (jk) is that he's also the biggest clown in the pasture. Just when I'm ready to ring his neck he'll do something that has me holding my sides laughing. As my husband says, if all he ever does is make me laugh like that, he's worth his oats. Oh, well ... thus goes the adventure called life ...

Yeah my boy sorry is something else with that attention span of like 2 seconds. I had a trainer say he has horsey ADHD!!

 

[miss_thenorth]

Yes, longeing is very common, but I would like to comment that the whip is not for hitting the horse.

 

[SunnyCalifornia]

My mind is at peace...... Thank you! I knew I could count on BYC'ers to give me the info I needed. I won't be worried next time.