Longeing, Head to Tail

Benefits of Longeing
Longeing is frequently used as a way to work off some extra energy before riding a strong horse, but its real purposes and advantages are much more broad:
• Introduce the young horse to tack before adding a rider or cart.
• Exercise without the influence of a rider's weight, to help a horse find his natural balance and gaits.
• Help re-educate horses with head carriage and bit problems by allowing them to move freely but within the limits of correctly adjusted sidereins.
• Early rehab of horses with back problems or front leg injuries, where a rider's weight would cause additional strain.
• Exercise the horse when you don't have time to tack up.
• A change of pace for the horse, especially one that has limited or no turnout, who will enjoy the relative freedom that longeing provides.
• Allows the handler to watch how the horse moves from the ground for early detection of lameness and for making sense of things he may be feeling from the saddle.
• Building muscle and condition, especially at the canter or with frequent transitions between gaits.

Longeing Basics
• Never take your eyes off the horse. This is an open invitation to bolt, change direction, run out or cut in toward the center of the circle.
• The classic "V" or triangle formation is essential to keeping horses moving forward. The handler should be positioned at the point of the V, behind the horse's shoulder and facing the same direction as the horse. The line forms one side of the V, the whip the other. The horse's body is the base of the triangle.
• The whip is essential to keeping the horse's attention and encouraging forward energy, but horses learn that the whip can't actually reach them. Use the longest whip you can handle, walk a small circle rather than pivoting in place, and continue to cast the whip toward the horse's shoulder or croup at the four 90-degree points of the circle (12, 3, 6 and 9 o'clock) so the horse moves out and forward.
• Keep the circle out at 20 meters (33 feet from the handler), and limit your sessions to 20 or 25 minutes, including changes of direction.
• Don't allow the horse to buck, bolt or gallop. Insist on the specified gait right from the start of the session. (Bad actors behave better when longed in tack than with a halter, especially when sidereins are added.)
• If you're longeing in a bridle, twist the reins under the throatlatch and then undo the buckle and wrap them around the neck so the horse can't step on them.
• If a horse tends to rear, try a standing martingale or sidereins with an elastic insert run between the legs from girth ring to ring on the underside of the cavesson.
• If the horse tends to buck and run out the line, run a chain through the near halter ring and under the chin, then through the off halter ring and up to the cheek ring. When the horse is in the air for his buck, the handler can keep his head straight on the circle.
• Always wear gloves. Always remove spurs. Never let the end of the line drag on the ground.