𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐲 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐥𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐠𝐚𝐝𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐬

If you've followed my free course '𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑒𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑐𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑙𝑒𝑔𝑠' you understand why it's so important to that the hind leg can swing freely underneath the body. The more the horse can make big strides, stepping underneath the body, the more the pelvis will tuck in and push the spine up.

In order for this to be possible, the horse needs to get space in the front to actually move. This you achieve in the ridden work by keeping your hands pushing forward and letting the horse fall into the contact. In the lunging work one seems to struggle a little bit more how to do this constructively and then start to reach out for gadgets. Unfortunately, almost every gadget blocks the horse in the front making it a lot harder for the horse to really come through from behind.

Every backwards motion in the mouth blocks the hind legs. This is not what you want to achieve!

So what you can you instead?

First of all, make sure you maintain soft contact on the lunging line, so you don't want it slacking and dragging over the floor. Then try to bring your attention to the inside hind leg and ask your horse to moving it towards the outside front leg. You're pushing your horse towards a small shoulderfore.

The diagonal line from inside hindleg to outside front leg is longer than the inside hindleg towards the inside frontleg. So asking this diagonal movement activates the hind legs of the horse asking for a biggest stride. Maintaining soft contact with the mouth creates a bit a little inward bend making this movement easier. You'll notice that after some time your horse will start moving towards the contact.

No aids needed anymore!

Enjoy trying!