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I cut a longe line down to a workable size and use this only for NATRC
ride check-ins, not for regular longing work. It's about half as long as
it was to start with. Then I don't have excess line to worry about. I
have a knot tied at the end of the line. I also use a short whip to
signal my horse with, holding it in the hand with the end of the line
(at the knot). Then I have a minimal amount of "stuff" in my hands to
keep track of as I'm longing. After the horse has circled one
direction, I say whoe and ask her to stop, tell her to turn, and as she
does this I reach up with the hand holding the whip, grasp the line that
the other hand is holding and switch hands on the line by sliding the
other hand down the line, taking the whip in the other hand also as I do
this. It's not that hard to do, providing, of course, that the horse
knows to stop and turn when you ask it to, and you're not fighting with
the horse to get it slowed down. I found that using a full length longe
line and full sized longe whip is too much to keep track of. I've
dropped the line, gotten the whip wrapped around my ankles, etc. Very
embarrassing! By shortening up the line and whip, it's much easier to
handle. Then all you have to do is practice this until it's effortless.
I force myself to practice this at home when longing for exercise as
well, using a full longe line and full sized whip, which is a lot
harder, but good practice because then when I do it at a ride with my
shortened equipment, it's that much easier. When using full sized line,
I coil it into loops that I let out gradually to avoid getting tangled
up in, and when stopping and turning the horse, re-loop it a couple
times to pick up excess line as the horse turns.
Ruth
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