Yesterday was Lorena’s – 2yo Twin Peaks, CA Mustang filly, adopted – first time in hobbles. It was a non-event.
She’s comfortable with leading by a foot, having her feet handled and she’s been trimmed.
When I put the hobbles on towards the end of our session and rewarded her for putting up with it, nothing happened. So far so good.
I asked her to take a step, and she realized her front feet weren’t able to move normally. She shifted her weight around trying to figure it out.
Lorena balanced herself, yawned and looked at me like “Was that ok?” Another reward and another ask to move.
She tried to hop, that didn’t work all that well, so next she shuffled forward. That’s it. Another reward.
We hung out for another few minutes before I took the hobbles off and ended the session. Well done little lady.
People feel all sorts of different ways about hobbles. I feel some kind of way about hungry horses tied to trees staring at the sky while riders enjoy their lunch break out on a ride.
The horse that carried them there is built to graze almost around the clock. They are 1000lbs power houses sustaining their bodies and receiving their energy essentially from salad.
Most of us could skip a meal or 3 and still be ok, because our diet and metabolism are vastly different.
To me, hobble training means taking better care of my horses while out day riding or fixing fence, it means being able to graze areas that maybe aren’t fenced for horses otherwise, and it means no hungry ponies on backcountry trips.
It means having my horse not blow up if their foot catches a hose, wire or string hidden under grass, lawn darting me and potentially cutting up a leg.
It means teaching my horses not to struggle when a leg is caught someplace it shouldn’t be, in a fence, a feeder or on the trailer. Cedar did that recently and quietly let me free her because she’d had plenty of rope practice around her legs.
I personally three leg hobble in the backcountry and I don’t leave them hobbled unsupervised. There’s a story or 3 to go with that.
Meanwhile I’m excited for the home this girl has found, and for another trip “to prison” (literally) tomorrow and grateful for the opportunity to give several more wild ones a chance at a wonderful domestic life through our nonprofit organization Wild Horse Outreach & Advocacy
Contact us if you’re looking to adopt or would like to support our efforts to help Mustangs successfully transition from holding pens to loving homes. We can only do what we do because of you, whether you’re volunteering, donating, buying merch, adopting, attending clinics or spreading the word about what we do.
