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Question:
I received two
questions that relate to my opinion on the use of a round pen.
First, is round penning necessary? The second question relates to
an article by another clinician who stated that round penning is bad
for a horse because we are using the animal’s flight instinct and
actually scaring it to make it run.
Answer:
A round pen can
be an excellent tool. It creates a very safe training environment
with the round edges, smooth sides and no corners. It should have
sides at least six feet high so a horse can get his head over the
top of it. Some people work in a square pen but you spend a lot of
time teaching the horse to stay out of the corners, which is an
exercise in itself. I don’t see the benefit and I think it is a
little harder on the horse. Also, the diameter plays a role in its
usefulness and I personally don’t want anything larger than sixty
feet across. Anything larger and you lose a connection with the
animal. It can be very hard to keep a horse moving particularly if
the horse is lethargic and doesn’t want to move. More than sixty
feet is harder on the horse and the handler. You don’t want
anything smaller than forty feet across but fifty or fifty-five feet
can work well. I like the larger size and that is what we have here
at the ranch for the big warm bloods. Larger horses move faster and
cover too much ground to be worked in a smaller round pen. Also, if
a horse is really edgy, has a high flight response or is fearful, a
forty or fifty-foot pen is not large enough. I have had horses in
our sixty-foot pen that I’m not doing anything with, and I have
about the softest posture in the world, but the horse just runs
around on its own.
So, how can we
utilize this very useful tool, the round pen? It can be used for
many different types of exercises and training. I often begin by
getting a horse to connect with me, in other words to recognize me
as a leader and start following me with his eyes and yielding his
hind quarters. I can also work with a horse to start de-spooking
exercises. It is a good place to teach a horse to go over a tarp,
a pole or other objects. If the horse gets away, he can’t go very
far and can’t get caught up in a corner. I use the round pen to
teach my horses flexibility. It is also a good place to start the
first half dozen rides on a horse or more, depending on the nature
of the horse. I can start teaching my horse to ride bridle less.
I have a DVD that covers many, many different effective ways to use
a round pen.
Just like any
tool, it is how we use that tool. Over many years at the various
horse Expos I have coined the phrase, “It is not the equipment that
trains the horse.” Now, it is not the equipment and it is not the
exercise that trains the horse. There are a lot of great exercises
from a lot of nationally known trainers that do quite a good job.
You see the magic in an exercise but when you try it, you don’t get
the same result. This can happen in a round pen, as well as another
environment; it is the way an exercise is done that determines if it
is effective.
We do use the
flight instinct to get the horse to move around us and away from
us. You do not have to run a horse into the ground but you don’t
want the horse to walk either. You want good forward movement
without the horse looking around or thinking about what is outside.
The horse needs to exert himself. You want to get the horse to be
thinking about you. One of the things we haven’t discussed that is
very important is that when you control the horse’s feet, you
control his mind. And that is what is neat about a round pen, it is
a small, quiet, safe environment and it makes it easier to get
control of the feet. When you first start round penning your horse,
you want at least a good forward trot, at minimum a good working
trot. If the horse gets lazy at that, I will push it to a canter.
I want a horse to go forward consistently at any gait at any time
and I always want the horse to go forward consistently. When a
horse is stopping and thinking about something else, we are not
moving the horse enough. We are looking for consistent forward
movement, which is controlling the horse’s feet. The idea is to
push the horse to start thinking about who we are and that we are a
force to be reckoned with. That may sound harsh but it is not when
you consider the dynamics of a horse that is out with a herd. Out
in pasture, a horse will run another horse around, almost running it
into the fence and then will run it back the other way. What that
horse is doing is establishing leadership. Leadership is also what
we need to establish but that does not give us license to run our
horse into the ground. What we do to establish leadership is to get
the horse to go forward and to go forward consistently, and then to
change directions. In the beginning it does not make any difference
if it is an inside or an outside turn, we are simply controlling the
horse’s feet.
Once I have a
horse going forward consistently in both directions and changing
directions, I am controlling the horse’s feet. Some horses will
want to stop and change directions on their own. You, as the lead
horse, need to send the horse back to moving forward in the
direction you have established. Also, there are some horses that
will challenge you several times and you must be consistent in your
response. Round pen work really establishes the handler as the
leader. When a horse is starting to look at me, tipping his nose in
and I can see that his inside eye and left ear are on me, I like the
horse to turn and face me, giving me both eyes. I do this by
stepping away and, in a manner of speaking, drawing the horse toward
me by moving away from his shoulders and nose. If the horse is
moving along pretty well with a nice brisk forward working trot or
canter, you may have to spiral backward quickly as the horse is
going to want to catch up with you. This is the first time we are
training our horse to do something besides a change of direction.
We are asking the horse to turn into us and look at us. I’ve worked
with a lot of nervous and skittish horses and it can be done. Some
horses just take longer than others. This is raising the standards
and being specific with your horse.
It is easy to
have a horse change directions, especially when the horse turns to
the outside because he doesn’t want to be with you in the first
place. And, yes we are motivating the horse using the flight
instinct. We are using the herd mentality to control the horse. It
only becomes a problem to use the natural instinct when we run a
horse into the ground. Sometimes we think we need to run a horse in
one direction for a very long time, twenty laps. The most I run a
horse in one direction is seven or eight laps. After that the horse
is starting to think about me, it is time to step back and ask the
horse to come in. If your horse starts to come in, slow down and is
turning the head, that is not the time for you to stop. You need to
continue spiraling back toward the inside rail of the round pen.
Then if the horse stops just except that or take another step
backwards and leave the horse alone and let him rest.
This may be the
first time that you have really connected with the horse. By
working in the round pen properly, you can really gain the horse’s
trust. Work in the round pen is also a good gymnastic exercise as
we teach the horse inside and outside turns. We can actually do
figure eights and teach the horse to do lead changes and flying lead
changes. We can teach our horse to do curly cues and use the hind
quarters by making an inside turn and then quickly making an outside
turn within a six-meter circle. This is a very good gymnastic
exercise for a horse.
Look not only
at the application of the exercise but at the end result. A horse
should be more calm after a lesson. His neck should be down and
relaxed; he should be paying more attention to you. If a horse
never gets relaxed, the handler asked too much of the horse or never
gave the horse an opportunity to relax (too much pressure). You
need to give the horse a chance to drop its head, relax and know
that it has done the right thing. The round pen is just a tool. It
is what we do with it that trains the horse.
God Bless
Charles Wilhelm
It’s Never Ever the Horse’s Fault |
