ElO-Boarder & Trainer, Lancaster Farming, Saturday, March 15, 2003
Training Horses
(Continued from Page El)
stepping out to a comer in
front of the horse and hold the
lead line taut.
“As soon as the horse steps
to you, release the pressure,”
he said. “It is like saying
‘thank you for doing the right
thing.’
“In everything you ask a
horse to do, you must first say
please and give it direction to
where you want it to go.”
Apply pressure, said Egan,
then as soon as they move
stop asking, stop pressure,
“and that becomes ‘thank
you.’
“Make the right way easy
and the wrong thing difficult
so they chose to do the right
thing,” he said.
Graduating to the lunge
line uses the same system.
First Egan teaches the horse
to move away by putting pres
sure on the horse’s head by
gently pulling the lunge line
with his left hand, then step
ping toward the horse’s flank
and tapping on its hip.
“I consider this to be just an
extension of the lead rope,” he
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said. The lunge line is simply
a lead from 30 feet, he ex
plained. Egan used the lunge
whip “not as a whip, since we
want them to be accepting of
the whip, but as
an extension of
my arm, just
like reaching
out and tapping
the horse,” he
said
When the
horse began cir- m
cling Egan at
the full distance of the line,
“notice I am not walking,” he
said. “1 keep my left foot in a
relatively stable location and
pivot.
“His (the horse’s) job is to
stay at the end of the line,”
said Egan. “If I’m walking all
over the place, how does he
know where the end of the
line is?”
If a horse attempts to come
in toward the trainer, Egan
simply taps it with the lunge
whip in the mid-neck area.
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go faster, Egan tapped the
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horse with the lunge whip on
the animals’ rib cage, “where
the rider’s legs would normal
ly be,” he said. At all times
Egan kept his shoulders paral
lel to the line, facing the same
direction as the horse’s for
ward movement.
If the horse drops in toward
the trainer, “step out toward
them and send them toward
the end of that line. Don’t pull
the line up,” he said. The
horse will quickly learn that it,
not the trainer, is in charge of
the workout if they find they
can drop in toward their train
er, he said.
Lunging a horse not only
takes off their edge of energy
but also communicates
to the horse that the
trainer will “not to let it
do what he wants, but
what I ask him to do,”
said Egan. “A horse that
starts to breathe
heavy starts to think
clearer.”
The third reason
to lunge a horse is
not only to teach it
manners but also to
ride. “Everything we
do on the ground
correlates to under
saddle work,” he
said.
To stop the horse,
Egan puts a back
ward “V” in the
line. However “we
don’t necessarily
want him to come
in. Send them back
out so they don’t
come in each time
they stop,” he said.
Working with
horses requires pa
tience and time,
according to Egan.
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“People get in a hurry,” he
said. “You need to give your
horse time to leam and absorb
information.”
To prepare the animal for a
rider, “time on the ground
leads to manners. He may act
up but it doesn’t take long to
leam that all he has to do is
Brian Egan
Penn State
the stirrups
tied togeth
er to let the animal get used to
the feel of the saddle.
By attaching long lines to
the horse’s bridle and walking
behind the horse, Egan further
readied the horse for riding by
teaching it to turn, stop, and
back with pressure in the ani
mal’s mouth through the long
lines.
Egan didn’t expect an im-
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mediate stop from the animal.
“If we want a horse to stop,
we don’t ever think stop. We
think slow down,” he said.
“Stop is an extreme slow
down.”
At Penn State, the horses
are first ridden in a 12 foot by
12 foot stall in the bam, an
area where the horses are al
ready comfortable. Next they
graduate to being ridden in a
12-foot-wide, 18-feet-long
hallway.
In his demonstration Egan
slowly put his foot in the
stirrup, waited, and returned
to the ground before repeating
the process and resting his
weight across the animals’
back. He then mounted and
rested in the saddle for a mo
ment.
stop” for
the saddle
to stop
tightening.
Egan
lunged the
quarter
horse with
“The best thing to do when
you get on a horse for the first
time is get off,” he said. The
animal is already anxious, he
said, so a rider reinforces that
being ridden is a trap to the
horse if they stay mounted too
long, he said.