Hobble Training Your Horse

Hobble training requires slowly getting the horse used to new things it might be afraid of, such as rope. Find out how to hobble train a horse with helpful advice in this video on training horses.

Hi, I'm Rick Gore. I'm out here at the Travis Equestrian Center and today we're going to talk about how to start or hobble train your horse. Big part of hobble training is sacking out your horse and we're going to make a separate video on that. But sacking out is basically getting a horse used to things that he would normally be scared of. So I want to desensitize him and make him. So if I come up to a horse that's never seen a rope and I start doing this, he's going to get scared because of the noise and other things and this flying around. So I want to desensitize this horse to the rope that I'm going to be using on him; so I'm sliding on him; it's making noise, it's flapping; it's kind of scary. He's got to know that it's not going to hurt him. He's got to know that I can get it all around him. He knows that it's not going to hurt him, it's making noise; I'm not sneaking around him; I'm not trying to get him slow. I need to do whatever I'm going to do normally so he knows I'm not going to hurt him and this is not going to hurt him. Once you get him good to use to a lariat or any other type of soft rope you want to use; I use this 'cause he's already hobble train. I wouldn't use this on a necessarily, a brand new horse that I, I didn't think could handle it. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to loop one of his feet here to get him used, my main focus is to get him used to things touching his feet, running around his legs and getting him trapped. So as I'm rubbing this rope and I'm getting him to give the pressure, he's ignoring all of this and he's showing me that he's accepting this pretty well. So now I'm going to see if I can get him to give the pressure little bit; so I'm going to pull on this rope see if I can get him to pick his foot up. So as he picks it up, I'm going to let it back down. So he just gave to that rope pressure. When he's hobble, he's going to be restricted, so I'm going to make sure he knows this very well. So he gave the pressure at the higher level, I'm going to go a little bit lower down by his ankle and see if I can get his foot to pick up here. He's telling me he's getting a little tense. "Give me your foot boy, good boy". So he gave the pressure and I gave back; release is the key. So after he does that, he's used to this running. If you notice when I run this through here, I don't want the horse getting scared when something rows along his foot. So he's standing there; he's telling me he's accepting this; I'm going to go ahead and loop his foot and this isn't to fight or hold him. This is only to get him used to something around his foot. As I shake this rope and pull, he's getting used to thing around his foot so when I put the hobbles on, he's not going to freak out or react. So I'm going to move it, I'm going to let him pull; he feels it snapping. I'm not going to be sneaky; I'm going to rub it on him until his high, his head went up; he's a little nervous. That's okay, I don't want to react to that; I want to let him know, "Hey, whatever happens when I'm doing this, you're not going to get hurt." So his foot is pretty good; now I want him to come and he just gave the pressure again. When I pull this rope back away, I want him to give the pressure. "Good boy, haha, good boy." So what I'm showing you in three minutes or five minutes should take you about a week. You don't want to rush this process. You want to, everything you do with a horse has to be on his terms; on the horse's terms, on how much can he accept. The horse will tell you if you're doing it right, if you're going it too fast of if you need to slow down. So he already gave me that one foot. After I do that at the other foot, I want to do the same thing with the other foot. Rope around it, slide it, pick up the foot again, put it around there; make sure it gives to it. Once he gets totally comfortable with this, "Come", then I can get him to take a step. He's telling me he'll give the pressure, now I think he's ready for a hobble. And again, I'm going to do this foot, I'm going to do this with all four feet. Even though I'm not going to hobble his rear feet, this is a good opportunity to sack your horse out and to get him used to things around his feet. I got a nice pair of soft hobbles, they're broken in. Again, I don't want to just stick them on his feet, I want him to know what these are before they come in here. It shouldn't be a whip, it's not going to be a, something to hurt him; I'm going to sack him out with it. I want to make sure he's comfortable with it; I'm going to do the same thing I did with the rope and make sure that he knows and he's comfortable that when I put this on his foot, it's not going to be a surprise and it's not going to scare him. "Go boy". This is a, just a figure eight hobbles. Basically it's a simple leather hobble, you can buy them at most tacks stores. You slide it in one way and it makes a figure eight as you slide it out the other and then you hook it. And basically one hoof is going to be in each hole. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to go ahead and slide this on here; so I'm going to wrap it around his outside of his foot; make the one figure eight through, "Good boy; I know I don't want you to pick it up." I'm going to come back down through the hole, wrap it around the other foot, hook it on there. Now this is really important, the first time you hobble a horse, you want to hold this rope and hold his head because most horses will fall when they're first hobble. So if this is the first time he's on there, when he, when I had him take a step, he would panic and he'd go, "Oh no", and he'd want to fall and if you don't hold them and support their head, they're going to hit their mouth and bust their face. So be aware of that. You put the hobbles on and then I want to make him move just a step, there. He took a step; he didn't panic; he knows, he's hobble trained, he knows. Your horse when he does that, it may go, "Oh my God, I'm trapped." So he may rear, he may jump. Your job is to calm him and let him know that it's okay and to support him if he falls. If, if this was the first time hobbling this horse, he took one step and he did this, "Good boy", I'm going to come right down here, take these hobbles off and then make him take a step and say, "Hey, you're free; good boy" and back up, "Back, good boy; I know". So that would be a basic beginner hobbles. Once he did good with that, I would move on from there. My next time I hobble him, I would put a set of hobbles on him; I would move his rear end. "Good boy, good boy. I know." And that's basically beginning hobbles; real important. I would highly recommend it. It's a good sacking out tool. It's an advanced sacking out tool. It prepares your horse to keep him safe if he ever gets caught in barb wire. If you're walking on a trail, he gets caught on a wire or stick, stick stone, he's not going to panic. He's going to know that I've had my feet trapped before. So good luck on your hobble training.