Are Lunge Lines Dangerous?

Abbey wrote to ask if using Lunge Lines are dangerous. "I am back into horses after a 15 year lay off. I am working with a seven year old Arabian mare who I just love and she is working out great, I will most likely be buying her, but the owner cautioned me when I was lunging her on a line. She said using a lunge line was dangerous and I should lunge her at liberty in the round pen. The mare is rideable and not a green horse by any means, so I am not getting the dangerous lunge line bit. What is your opinion on using a lunge line? Thanks!"


Hey Abbey, I don't think lunge lines are inherently dangerous, whether you are using a 25 foot lunge line in a round pen or arena, or using the lead line to move the horse around. I suppose if your lunge line was to long and you coiled it up on the ground you could step into the coils and if the horse bolted and you couldn't get her head around then maybe you could be drug. Same for wrapping the lunge line around your hand or arm. But who does this? 

In the picture below, you'll see my lunge line, which is 23 feet long, laying on the ground as I control it with my left hand and use a flag to move my horse around with my right hand.  I can't remember ever getting tangled up in the lunge line where it posed a danger to me or my horse.    I have lost track of how many times I have dropped the lunge line on accident, only to pick it up and continue on.  If I'm using a lunge line or long lead on a horse in the round pen and that horse gets into trouble, such as spinning into the line and getting wrapped up, I can simple drop the line.

I use pretty long lead lines on my rope halters, usually 14 feet, so I can lunge my horse in small circles as a warmup when I get him from the pen and to see if he has any lameness issues. This is also useful to remind my horse that I am the leader (at least today) and get him focused on me.

I make 23 foot lunge lines using yacht braid rope with large brass bolt snaps and use them to not only lunge horses with,but I'll use two of them to ground drive a horse sometimes. But a majority of the time I free lunge my horses  (what you call lunging at liberty) in a round pen.

Lunging with lines is useful to green horses to teach them to give and to bend to disengage their back ends. Plus I use lunge lines (or lead ropes) connected to the rope halter to work their feet and legs getting them desensitized to ropes slipping across their hocks or a rope going underneath them.  I wouldn't try to use a lunge line at first on a totally wild horse, preferring to free lunge until I get control of his feet and see that horse's anxiety being replaced by acceptance and curiosity. 

I think that it is probably as dangerous, maybe even more dangerous leading a horse on a short lead line than using a lunge line, given all the things that can happen close up if you are not careful and/or the horse broke enough.  Such as the horse spooking and stepping into/onto you or tossing his head and hitting you with it.  Simple thing to do is to ask the mare's owner what she means by lunge lines being dangerous and consider the validity of her answer, but I think it's probably a good idea to be handy with ropes and lines and think you can do so without risk to yourself for the horse.  Hope this helps. Safe Journey.   

2013 Lincoln County Cowboy Symposium

My wife and I recently returned from our 13th trip to the annual Lincoln County Cowboy Symposium in Ruidoso, New Mexico. Ruidoso is a mountain town about an hour Northeast of Alamogordo, New Mexico and located close to the Mescalero Apache Reservation. It's nice to get up into the Mountains and get a taste of cold mornings after a long hot summer.

We go as it's our anniversary and we were also celebrating my wife completing cancer treatment and literally getting back in the saddle. As you can tell from the photo, my wife is beautiful, and more important, healthy,....... and really likes Kettlecorn! 

The Symposium is a two and a half day gathering of horse people, western artists and vendors, horse events - reining competition, horse training and mule demonstrations, and the headline Chuck wagon cook off. The big draw for us has always been Craig Cameron's demonstrations where Craig works with any troubled or green horse that is brought to him.  The Craig Cameron booth offering high quality working gear, from halters, to hobbles, to bridles, bits and books, and saddles was jam packed as usual.  All of the gear is available at the Craig Cameron website, too.

With one of the horses brought to Craig this year it was a 2 year old filly that was barely halter broke,..if you consider halter broke to be just wearing a halter and not leading up, facing or giving to pressure.

Craig said up front that he was going to try and make this filly better off but it might take longer than the scheduled hour demonstration time since it was going to be up to the filly to be accepting and he wasn't going to rush her. Craig reminded us that his objective is to take the fear out of the horse.  He reminded us that if this filly was handled more since birth she would have been in a better place to begin with this morning.

He started with getting her to move her feet, disengage her back end when asked, giving to pressure, facing up on the lead line and desensitizing her with a rope and flag.  You could see the changes in the horse come and soon Craig had this filly wearing a bare back pad. While she continuously got better, she still had a little trouble being driven or moved around the round pen, so Craig brought in his big gray horse to help and give the filly someone to follow.



Once she got comfortable moving around the pen with the big Gray, Craig got her saddled and did the same. After a few spurts of bucking, see photo at left, she settled down nicely.

Through what turned out to be about a 90 minute session Craig gave the fily short breaks which calmed the young horse and gave her a chance to absorb and accept was Craig was asking of her.





Craig also worked the filly from horseback atop his big Gray giving the filly a chance to accept a person towering above her and used the Gray to get the filly to follow the feel on the lead rope, getting some lateral flexion, moving her feet and disengaging her back end. See photo at right.





At the end of the session the filly was ridden in the round pen by one of Craig's apprentices. That session changed that horse's life for the better. You could see it in her as she changed in the round pen and when she left the pen she was leading up just fine. A lot of fear went out of that young horse that morning as she began to trust humans.  I hope she never gets let down.