Lungeing aids: are they a good idea to use?

Hello!

What a good thing to ask 😊

It is a common misconception that the horse's head and neck need to be fixed in place, for example with an aid like a lungeing aid. Locking the head and neck actually has a negative effect on the horse's body. Here is how a lungeing aid works on the horse.

🐴 Through pressure in the mouth, it encourages the horse to bring its head down and back towards the forelegs. If the horse raises its head the pressure increases, so to find a release it has to lower the head again. The risk is that the horse learns to avoid the pressure by going in a damaging outline, behind the vertical, with its nose tucked too far in towards the chest.

🐴 A lungeing aid is not really an aid at all but a genuinely harmful piece of equipment that should not be used. When a horse works in a correct outline, the collection and the push from behind come from the hindquarters, and that takes good muscle and proper balance. As long as the horse is working from its hind legs, the position of the head and neck can vary a fair amount. A lungeing aid simply pulls the head down through pressure and jabbing in the mouth. It therefore misses the most important part of a correct outline, namely engaging the hind legs and lifting the back.

🐴 With this type of lungeing aid, the horse often ends up on the forehand. Over time the risk is that it builds the wrong muscles, or that the work starts to break the horse down rather than build it up. It is easy to assume the horse is going nicely because its head is low, when in fact you may be missing the training that actually matters. The elastic give in the aid also creates a counter-pull, so the effect is not the one you were after. A lungeing aid of this kind, running up over the horse's back, often hinders more than it helps. The work becomes counterproductive and wears the horse out instead.

🐴 That does not mean it is fine to lunge the horse charging around with its head straight up and its back hollow either. You have to match the exercises and the speed to the horse's level of training and its physical ability.

I hope that gives you a slightly clearer picture of this type of aid. 🦄