No Arena, Just a Round Pen – I'm Bored?
I am exercising this horse for a woman, she is 7, paint, and severely overweight. We are 2 rides in and she is constantly testing me. She even turned back to take a chunk out of my leg, and while It didn’t hurt at the time – she left a huge bruise.
So her quirk, right, why I am working her – She needs work on her transitions, she also bucks when she is asked to lope.
Also, her owner has no saddles that fits her (which likely why she is irritable) So I am riding her in my wintec dressage saddle with neck reins… its a funny sight. Anyhow, we are in the round pen which is fairly large (about half the size of a small arena) but around in circles is getting boring.
We set up ground poles and trotted around most of it and then walked over the ground poles.
But I need ideas (not just focused on transitions) to do in the round pen so I don’t die of boredom and can spend a whole hour in there.
(sorry for scattered thoughts – its morning)
i would go over more ground work with her. then do lateral work with her like neck flexing. and then i would do figure eights around the round pen and practice her whoa, go and her neck reining. then after all this and she seems to respect me, i would move out of the round pen and do around the yard. then on trails. and practice light light jumping or going around some barrels or just cantering and loping. then if shes doing really good i would walk her up and down the roads and then get her traffic safe then start ridding her all over the place. 5 mile goal is a good start and she should be nice and ready when she can make 15-20 miles (4-5hr rides) this will take weeks. do lots of flexing and do different things to try to build her muscle up and loose the weight. good luck!
You can work on getting real smooth latteral movement, like having her move off the rail and toward the rail with you just picking up the reins and giving her some leg pressure.
Teach her to make the squares, for steps forward, four steps to the right, four steps back, and four steps to the left.
Teach her to back with just your body movement.
to sidepass haunchs to the rail and haunches away from the rail.
Work her so she would rein so well that you could ride her in control without the bridle.
To turn on the forhand and on the hind quarters.
Teach her to take either lead on the first stride, the one you ask for..
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Have her walk over plastic and go under some, carry a flag.
I hope that when she bit your leg you loosened her teeth with your toe. You should never permit a horse to bite you.
When my horses test me, I put them in the round pen for more ground work. No matter the age, or how well trained he may be. I lead the horse in, take the lead off, stand in the middle of the pen, my horse standing in front of me, looking at me. I stretch my arm out straight and point the direction I want him to go. He watches me the whole time. I can point either direction, and he will go the way I pointed. I snap my fingers 2x for trot, 3x for lope. My horses have learned to respect me by doing this. Once he stops and walks to me, I know I have his attention and I can get back on. This is a very good way to get their attention and does not hurt them as a punishment or extra ground work. My preacher told me to do this with my 5 year old QH to get him going. It worked. I start with this before I ride him so he knows I am in charge. We continue to work in the round pen, figure 8′s circles, small circles, spinning, you name it. He is a barrel horse in training, as well as cutting and penning. I agree, circles are boring. I could go to sleep doing them! That’s why I started spinning Jo. It’s like one of those rides at an amusement park compared to the same old circle! It was actually my 12 year old daughter’s idea to spin him. It is helping her with his barrel training. The owner really needs to get her checked to make sure she isn’t in pain from loping. And a proper fitting saddle would do great for her! Good job on changing the saddle to work with her.
Work on getting her to respect you. Once she respects you, you should be able to ride her outside of the pen.