How To Lunge A Horse

'Buck' - A Review: Horse Attitudes

In "Buck," a documentary about the uncanny talent and remarkable career of so-called "horse whisperer" Dan Brannaman, the courageous real-life cowboy sounds rather sheepish when he admits to sometimes watching "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

In fact, Brannaman's affection for the Queen of Daytime isn't surprising. The horseman's inspirational journey from abuse to liberation, with its fringe show-business context, celebrity connections and therapeutic usefulness, seems made to order for Winfrey's television couch.

"Rather than helping people with horse problems, I'm helping horses with people problems," says Brannaman, nicknamed "Buck," a horse trainer whose sensitivity and apparent empathy with animals made him one of the primary inspirations of the best-selling novel "The Horse Whisperer." (Brannaman later worked as a consultant on Robert Redford's film version of the book.)

The horse "has got to believe in you," Brannaman tells riders.

According to the film, Brannaman travels nine months a year, hosting clinics at corrals for people with disobedient, willful horses. In the movie's most compelling episode, he works with a violent "attack horse," an orphan stud stallion apparently as eager to lunge and bite as a vampire.

"That horse is a mirror -- all your horses are a mirror of your soul," he tells a group of clients that includes the attack horse's ashamed owner. "And sometimes you might not like what you see in the mirror."

Directed by clothing designer-turned-first-time filmmaker Cindy Meehl, who was inspired to pick up a camera by her fascination with Brannaman's abilities, "Buck"  might  be a better movie if it weren't so Buck-centric. Redford and various amazed witnesses are interviewed, but the film would benefit from the testimony of animal behaviorists and other experts, who might be able to put Brannaman's achievements in historic or scientific context. Even so, Brannaman's story is intriguing enough to survive the rather unimaginative construction of the movie that contains it.

Apparently, almost from infancy, Brannaman and his brother were raised to be "professional trick ropers." Their skill and rodeo fame earned them appearances on "What's My Line?" and in a Sugar Pops commercial, but at home the cute child cowboys were victimized by their drunken, abusive father, described by Brannaman as a "terrifying" man.

On Track for A CCI 1*: Teaching a Horse How to Lunge and Clip

Poor Ed. Pretty much day in and day out he is stuck inside his stall. He is now permitted 5 minutes of handwalking per day, which is an adventure in itself, but that really doesn't do much to fill the other 1,435 minutes of the day.

So, I got him a Uncle Jimmy's Hanging Ball. He loves it! The text I got from Bec today after I hung it was the following:

Ed - obsessed with ball. OBSESSED.

Yay pony! At first, he was spooking at it since it would swing into his bum. But, after a while, he would just lick it and follow it and try to bite it and lick it some more. It was pretty cute.

Lunging Introduction

For Yves, we had another exciting day. We kept the lunging very low key and, at this point, it is more like long lining than lunging. There were four big goals for today, given that this was his first time on the lungeline:

1. Maintaining lunging position (i.e. shoulder in front with me at the haunches).
2. Understanding "woah," "stand," "walk," and "[gait] on." (Those mean, respectively, slow, halt, walk, and more forward.)
3. When halting, it is not necessary to face me.
4. Trotting one full circle around me each direction.

With other horses, I would only have taught one or two of those things, but Yves just kind of got it.

Yves would be a natural horseman's dream colt. He was already programmed to stand at attention when halting on the lunge. Too bad I don't play by those rules. I have to say that he got this whole lunging thing pretty quick. Within about 3 minutes, he had the positioning down pat both directions. At first he was so confused, though! I could tell he was thinking, "but you told me that I'm supposed to be next to you!" But, as soon as he was staying out without my placing him there, I told him, "good," his cue for "that's the right answer!" You could see the light bulb go on and he just got it.

"Woah" was a bit trickier, though he got that, too. Since I really want him to read contact as something other than just slowing down, I had to be a bit clever with how I taught "woah." I would ask for it by stopping my body from following him around the circle and saying, "woah" with a downward inflection. As soon as he slowed up any perceptible amount, I would say "good," combined with a "walk on" cued with a dressage whip near his flank. After a bit, he figured "woah," could mean stop, too, and would stop and turn towards me.

Horse Sense, The Guide to Horse Care in Australia and New Zealand

Schooling and riding the sport horse, a modern American hunter/jumper system

Lessons on the Lunge for Horse and Rider

Training the Horse in Hand, The Classical Iberian Principles

The Young Horse, Breaking and Training