When you break it down, hobbling is nothing more than teaching a horse to stand in place with his front feet tied. How you go about teaching a horse to do that is the difference between a positive experience that will benefit your training program and a negative experience that can turn into a wreck. I teach all of my horses to accept hobbles in a three-part process that builds the horse’s confidence in the situation and allows him to get comfortable with his feet being restricted.
When you take a prey animal’s legs away from him, his first response is to fight. Horses, like all prey animals, rely on their legs for survival. That’s how they outran the lions and tigers. When you take a horse’s legs away from him—his ability to run from a situation—his only other option is to fight. He will do whatever he can to survive the situation.
All horses will struggle when you introduce them to hobbles—that’s only natural. And some horses will struggle more than others. Your job as a trainer is to cut the struggle down as much as possible. Your first step to doing that is not introducing hobbles to your horse until after you’ve taken him completely through the Fundamentals groundwork exercises and he can do each exercise to a B plus level. The Fundamentals exercises allow you to gain your horse’s respect, teach him to trust you and get him to use the thinking side of his brain.
The second step to cutting down the horse’s struggle is to set him up for success by taking away one of his legs at a time. If all of a sudden you tied all four of the horse’s legs together, the chances of him exploding and reacting badly would be very high. He’s going to think the world’s coming to an end, and he is going to kick and strike and fight for his survival.
To avoid that scenario, you’re going to initially restrict the movement of one of his legs. When he’s comfortable with one leg being restricted, then you’ll take a second leg away from him. When he’s comfortable with two legs being restricted, you’ll take a third leg away from him. You wean the horse on to the idea that you can take his legs away from him and his life is not in danger.
If you’re interested in learning more about hobbling, check out our Hobbling and Leg Restraints digital download. The series explains what your horse needs to know before you begin training him to accept hobbles; how to introduce three types of hobbles to him; how to teach him to lead by his feet; and how to teach him to lie down.
Have a horsemanship question or looking for more training tips? Check out the No Worries Club.
