Have you ever thought about whether your horse should turn with his head towards you or away from you while working with him in a round pen? What do you think is the correct way and why?
If you picked a way that is correct you might be wrong and here is why.
I believe that it doesn’t matter whether your horse turns with his head away or towards you. The only thing that matters is whether your horse does it the way you asked for.
There is a different way in which I ask my horse to turn around with his head away and a different way that I ask my horse to turn around with his head towards me.
How to ask your horse to turn around with his head towards you?
When I want my horse to turn around with his head towards me, I move away from him to show him the movement towards the center of the round pen that I want from him.
How to get your horse to turn around with his head away from you?
On the other hand, if I want my horse to turn around with his head away from me, I walk towards him, towards the edge of the round pen. In this case, I want my horse to keep his distance from me. He should move away, turning around with his head away from me.
The whole point here is that your horse should maintain his distance from you. Your horse can sense that you are getting closer, or that you are getting further away from him. If your horse respects you, he should take it seriously when you start going towards him. He should move away to maintain his distance. My horse should always keep his eye on me and maintain his distance, when I start going further, or when I start going closer.
What should I start with?
When I start practicing turn arounds, I always start by getting my horse to turn around with his head away from me. That means with his head facing the fence of the round pen.
There is a good reason to start like that.
The first thing your horse needs to learn is to respect your space and to back up in front of you. That means that when you start moving towards your horse, he should maintain his distance and start going back. it doesn’t matter whether you go straight towards him and you want him to back up, or if you want him to move his hindquarters.
Another reason to start practicing turning around with your horses head away from you is that it is much easier to make him do it. You can correct your horse easily using your whip or your lead rope and make him go away from you in case he is hesitant.
There is no easy way to really force your horse to go towards you and do the turn around with his head towards you, unless you have him on a lunge line.
It is always easier to gain respect in the beginning when you can easily force your horse to do what you ask. Starting with practising turning around with your horses head facing away from you is easier for him to understand, and easier for you to enforce, in case he doesn’t want to listen.
Later on as you gain respect you can start practicing turning around with your horses head facing towards you.
If you continue in this order, you will be able to gain more respect and learn both of the exercises much quicker.
