Around The Round Pen

I consider a round pen, or other enclosure large enough to keep the horse far enough away from it cannot touch me and small enough to where I can control the horse without touching it, to be an absolutely essential tool for very quickly establishing a herd leader connection with the horse.

I never chase horses around a round pen. If it decides to run pell-mell around it on its own I stop that immediately. It will move around the enclosure at the speed I determine.

One of the things I hear quite often is that one must “longe” an Arab to take the edge off it before doing anything with it! It is the “Arab spirit.” Their “longeing” consists of mindless chasing the horse around to “get it’s attention on you…”

They simply cannot see all they are doing is increasing the endurance of the horse.

I simply give the horse a series of directions that I know beyond any doubt I can get the horse to obey without being connected to it or touching it until that horse, by its actions say, “Hmmm… This being is giving me herd leader directions and I am obeying them… Therefore this being is acting exactly like a herd leader, so he must be a herd leader.”

At that point, the horse will continue to accept me as a herd leader and honor me as such. It may need an additional touch-up at a later time but usually not.

This procedure mimics the herd dynamics, what we refer to as the “pecking order, used by the horse itself. Herd dynamics simply summed up is, “Take all the rights you take AND keep and honor all the rights you cannot take.”

I want *MY* enclosure be abnormally soft and deep for two reasons.

One, I am 80 and brittle, and if I should happen to come off during the initial under saddle work, well… I’m less likely to snap in half.

Two, as I said, I want the horse moving calm and quiet and I want the horse to move about the enclosure at my direction balanced on all fours. The deep surface causes the house to move cat-like square and use all four legs rhythmically with the head low in a natural balance headset which transfers up into a flexible back and contributes to muscle memory. The deep surface allows the horse to settle lower for stops and turns and its resistance increases muscle tone.

The tiller I have will turn the hard Georgia red clay into a foot of beach sand like footing.to what I consider is a very helpful surface to turn an “unbroke” horse into a relatively trust worthy horse.

A garden tiller can help soften the ground to meet brittle bones.

Is it necessary?

No, but it sure helps.

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