If you are teaching a young horse to respond to voice commands, or if your horse is slow in his response, you can use a lunge whip to reinforce your request. Voice the command first, and if the horse not respond, immediately touch him with the whip just above his hocks. Notice I said ‘touch’. Any harsher action can cause kicking, bucking, or just general misbehavior. Following this touch, repeat your voice command.

To encourage him to step forwards with activity, you can choose any command such as ‘forward’ or ‘go on’ or ‘active’. Get the horse used to these by combining them with a touch of the whip. When the horse has learned the meaning of these words, you will no longer need a whip.

How to hold and use the whip is important. It should be always pointing just behind the horse’s hocks. When used, the motion should be at an angle towards the horse’s eyes. In other words, when you touch the horse with the whip, move it as if drawing an imaginary line from the point of the hock to the eye.