Teaching your horse to stand hobbled can be very convenient in a variety of situations.  Hobbling is very popular on ranches as they are often stuck somewhere and there is no place to tie their horse.  It is also dangerous to tie your horse by his reins or bridle, so hobbling can be very convenient.

In order to teach your horse to stand hobbled, you will have to teach your horse to respond to pressure.  Yielding to pressure is one of the most important things you can teach your horse.  To begin teaching your horse to respond to pressure around his legs, you will want to take him to an arena or round pen.  You will want to loop a rope around his ankle and let him drag it.  When he is comfortable with the rope, you will be able to begin lifting the horse’s leg with the rope.  Some horses may react differently than others.  Some react to the rope while others may not care about it. 

You may also want to work on picking all four feet up with the rope.  This will teach the horse not to panic if he were to ever get caught up in fencing or wire.  If he has been taught to yield to pressure, he should not panic should he get caught up.  The horse must learn to yield to pressure no matter what position he is in.  By preparing your horse to yield to pressure around his legs, you will be able to place hobbles on him, without him panicking.

When you first put the hobbles on the horse, he may fumble around a bit and he may even fall down.  Don’t worry about this, he is only getting used to the hobbles restricting his movement.  You may have to carefully unhook the hobbles and help him back up.  If your horse has been prepared to deal with the pressure, he will most likely not panic as much and may accept the pressure on his legs.