In the old West a horse round pen was a place where cowboys took young horses that had never been handled to be bridled, saddled and broke to ride-often all in the same session. Ranch hands didn't have a lot of time to spare for subtleties. They needed to get a horse broke fast and into the remuda ready for a long day's work. Equine round pens were usually just a flat area enclosed with a circle of sawed-off saplings to keep a horse from escaping and running off.
While the methods of "breaking" horses have changed, equine round pens can be found not only on ranches, but on almost every show barn around the country. The benefit of having a horse confined in a small area with no corners to duck into has not been lost.
Round Pens Revisited
The equine round pen of today bears little resemblance to the twig and twine affair of yesterday. And neither does the horse's experience in one. Today round pens are primarily portable affairs, made up from steel-pipe corral panels that can be purchased at many farm- and ranch-supply stores or from specialty manufacturers. Enough panels to make up a equine round pen can be snapped together in less than an hour, and they're easy to move if you decide you picked the wrong spot for your horse round pen. The hardest part of putting up a equine round pen today is trucking in sand for footing and raking it level.
While putting up a round pen is simple. Working a horse in one is not. It is not the same thing as sending it around on a longe line. Longeing is often used as a way to exercise and condition a horse-roundpenning rarely is. The work in a roundpen is geared toward building a line of communication with the horse-without any line attached. Mindless circling is not the name of the game. Gaining a horse's attention and confidence is. Of course a roundpen can be used to exercise a horse-even to turn one out to get a little free time and fresh air. But when the handler is in the pen with the horse, the rules change.
Other than for lessons in driving on longlines from behind, the horse isn't normally on any kind of line. In fact, it usually doesn't have anything on it at all-not even a halter. The handler, however, needs some way to extend his or her reach in order to stay out of range of the horse's hind feet.
This is usually accomplished by carrying a soft rope coiled in one hand. It is held in the hand closest to the horse's hip. The end of the rope can then be tossed toward the hind feet to get the horse to move forward while the hand closest to the head points in the direct of movement.
Round Pen Workings
The idea of working with a horse in a roundpen (notice, it's not "working a horse" but working with a horse) is to get the horse to accept the dominance of the handler. It's moving him around for a lap or two, or even a half a lap, then asking him to turn and go the other way. Then turning him back the other way again. A horse has to slow down and think in order to change directions that quickly and once you've got him thinking you'll soon see his attention starting to focus on you instead of trying to find a way out, or looking at what's going on outside the pen.
