GUIDELINES FOR TRAINING THE VAULTING HORSE 4

 

Differences in lunging for vaulting, or using the horse as a lunge horse for training riders, to lunging a horse for exercise.

  1. Immediate obedience is required
  2. Use of the voice should be kept to a minimum and only used to reinforce specific whip signals.
  3. Lunger should pivot on the spot to enable horse to work on a perfect circle.
  4. Lunger should be able to influence the horse from that centre

 

Use of the Vaulting Whip as an aid:

The vaulting horse has to be very obedient and trustworthy. Obedience comes from consistent training, using  the vaulting whip in a very meaningful way. It is an extended whip with leather thong capable of reaching the hind legs from the centre of a 15 metre circle whilst the lunger stands still.

The following signals are fairly universal so that anyone taking a trained vaulting horse and using the known signals will have  a successful session.

 

Specific whip signals:

  • Must be consistent and only used when necessary.
  • Must be controlled and meaningful
  • To go up a pace use horse’s name then command
  • Should point low for walk
  • Should point at hock/stifle for trot
  • Tip raised high for canter
  • For canter use ‘name - canter hup’ and raise whip simultaneously. Then a quiet ‘hup’ and the whip raised will be sufficient, finally only the whip being  raised will put him into canter.
  • To energise horse, use with swirling motion.
  • To move out on the circle,  point to shoulder
  • To slow pace or change down a pace, bring under lunge line and raise in front of his face.
  • To stop, take whip behind your head and cast in front of horse like a fishing line. This is a powerful tool.

Why use the whip like this:

The horse has to differentiate from the chatter of vaulters and coaching instructions from the lunger,  which commands apply to him.

He can see the whip easily. A good vaulting/lunge horse will become very obedient to the whip.

 

Voice aids:

  • For walk - use tongue on roof of mouth behind front teeth – ‘ts’
  • For trot – one click
  • For canter  - 2 clicks or ‘hup’

 

BEV Ltd. Resource pack 2005                       Coaching doc. Training the vaulting horse 4