Move on already

At the last barn, there was a group of people who used the round pen to the point of overuse. They would lunge their horses in the round pen but their idea of lunging was to run the hell out of them, whipping at the horse and yelling constantly. Any time they had a problem with the horse- back to the round pen and run the hell out of them some more.

The funny thing was that they always watched me ride, had often asked me for help solving their problems and complimented me on my horses several times over. Not once were my horses in the round pen. I helped them a few times with some of the minor issues and solved them, working either out in the pasture or on the trail.

And yet when I made the comment about how the barn owner should tear down the round --pen, they got a bit butt hurt.  Before anyone gets the idea that I'm all Anti Round Pen, I'm not. They are good to have for starting horses, for free lunging on occasion and for turnout when the horse may be on restricted movement due to injury. But life does not revolve aound the round pen. At some point, you need to move on.

Once you've taught your horse to lunge on a line and can do it outside the round pen, You have moved on. If you're riding at a walk, trot/jog and canter/lope in the arena or out on the trail, obviously you've moved on beyond the round pen too. All things these people and their horses could do, but still they reverted back to the round pen, where they would run the hell out of the horses and damage any bit of the bond they had between them.

On top of that- the footing in there was for shit. It was uneven, deep in some spots, thin and hardpacked in others and there was also the perpetual mud spot that never dried up. I'm not one of those people that's difficult to deal with or hard to please, but I try to give my horse a chance and I'd like to keep them sound. adding to things, the round pen was small, as in too small. That kind of stress on their legs and joints is asking for problems.