MULE CROSSING: The Ins and Outs of Leg Supports
By Meredith Hodges
There are so many equine-related products on the market today that it is difficult to decide which ones you really need and which ones you don’t. For instance, the subject of splint boots and leg wraps can be very confusing. How do you know when to use them? What types of leg wraps or splint boots are best? Do they really help? In what ways do they help? What kind of material should they be made from? And the list of questions goes on.
Splint boots and leg wraps vary as much as their uses. The easiest and most obvious use of a leg wrap comes when traveling with your equine. If you are taking your animal any real distance, it is always advisable to use full cover, padd3ed shipping boots on all four legs. The shipping wraps help prevent your animal from injuring himself due to his own movements, on objects inside the trailer or because of other animals that are traveling with him.
If you have an animal that is fidgety and has difficulty standing still, applying leg wraps is the perfect opportunity to teach him to stand quietly while you handle his legs. You can begin training for leg wraps by putting them on your equine while he is outside of the trailer at your grooming station, and then removing them inside the trailer before unloading him. Make sure he is standing quietly while you put the leg wraps on him. Also, get in the habit of always removing the leg wraps while he is in the trailer. This makes him learn to wait for you before he departs the trailer. If he expects to have his leg wraps removed while he is still in the trailer, he is less likely to become excited or anxious, and possibly bump or step on you while waiting to exit the trailer.
The best shipping boots are the ones that are full leg (over the knees and hocks), quilted on the inside and attached with Velcro straps all the way down. Some materials such as fleece can collect bedding, or debris, and cause discomfort or pressure sores. The best shipping boots are made from a quilted nylon material and most of them cover the entire leg past the knee and over the hooves.
You can also use quilted cotton pads and leg wraps, but their primary use is when they are stalled, in order to prevent cuts and abrasions at shows and events. Polo wraps (a soft pliable cotton wrap with no quilted pads) are also used for support during training. These types of wraps are commonly used during Dressage training and typically only cover the cannon bones and not the fetlocks and pasterns. If you use Polo wraps, or quilted cotton pads and wraps, learn to wrap them correctly to avoid pressure points that could cause circulation problems. Consult with a professional to learn the proper wrapping technique. It is a hands-on lesson!
There is a wide variety of splint boots available on the market and each of them is designed for a particular use. When doing light work in the arena, or for rail riding, you might want to use a “front and back” set that are designed for minimal support, while still providing the legs with greater protection from injury. In beginning training, you might use splint boots only on the front legs, since your animal will not likely be using his hind quarters efficiently enough to cause problems. But once you have begun activities such as balanced stops and lateral work in Dressage, or Reining, rear boots become important.
When making a decision about which type of protection to use, it is important to first assess your equine’s development and the types of activities he will be doing. Boots that are deigned primarily for protection do not always lend much support to muscles and tendons.
They do, however, protect the equine from cuts, bumps and bruises, and are advisable for use during hard work, gymkhana events, trail rides in mountainous areas, and other stressful workouts. If you do use splint boots while trail riding and they get wet, do not leave them on your equine very long or they will lose their ability to be supportive, and can cause sores from rubbing. In order to prevent this from happening, boots should be removed, cleaned and dried out immediately after use.
In the beginning, since the goal is to condition your animal’s muscles and tendons, “light support” splint boots are a good thing to have on hand. At this early stage, if a boot gives too much support, the equine will not necessarily develop correctly, and the area beneath the boot (or wrap) can become weak. Muscles and tendons above and below the boot will gain too much strength and cause possible knotting of the muscles, compromising the function of the entire leg due to uneven conditioning.
After his basic training, when your equine is participating in more stressful activities such as jumping, endurance and racing (or in the case of an injury), it may become necessary to use a more supportive boot to lightly support already conditioned muscles and tendons. Support boots are designed to provide even support over the entire area that they cover. Be careful that they are neither too tight, nor too loose. You don’t want the boots so tight that they cut off the blood supply to the covered area, or not flexible enough to allow the joints to move freely. However, you don’t want them so loose that they ride down the legs.
Although the hooves look tough, they too can be adversely affected, particularly in gymkhana events and jumping. This is why “Bell Boots” may be needed for hoof and coronet band protection. The coronet band is a very sensitive area and can cause severe lameness if damaged, even by a small, seemingly insignificant cut or bump. If a hoof is unusually dry, severe cracks can occur. It is advisable to routinely use a hoof dressing in addition to the “Bell Boots’ to prevent traumatic cracking during repeated concussion.
When trying to decide which splint boots, leg wraps or other devices to use, asses your plan for the day. Leg wraps and splint boots uses can change from time to time, depending on the conditions of the day. Most shows do not allow splint boots, or leg wraps in certain classes. If the equine is in good physical condition, he should not need splint boots, or legs wraps for the short time during the performance unless it becomes extended as can be the case with gymkhana. In this case, your equine should be conditioned well enough to forego the actual support-type boots, and would only need protective boots.
You might be asking yourself, “How can I tell a minimal support boot from a fully-functional medical support boot?” This can be quite confusing considering all the different kinds of leg wraps and splint boots that are out there. Some even look identical, but are not. Off-brand splint boots look a lot like Pro Choice splint boots, but they are made from inferior-quality materials that do not afford the degree of flexibility needed for successful therapy. Although these off-brands are designed for support and do cover the joints, they should be considered as more of a protective boot than a therapeutic boot. Splint boots are strictly for the protection of the cannon bones because they do not cover the joints and offer very little support.
A short work about substituting boots for shoes on your equines’ hooves. I believe that using the boots for medical assistance is fine and can help healing. However, these boots never fit the hoof well enough to preserve the integrity of your equine’s good posture during riding and should not be a substitute for healthy hoof care, correct trimming, or shoeing. Boots that do not fit the animal’s foot, the way that shoes can, will adversely affect his ability to balance his whole body causing compromises and soreness everywhere. When you have a good farrier, nail holes will not compromise the equines’ hooves and will be grown out by the time they are reshod. If there is no need for the shoes, with proper trimming, they can remain barefoot most of the time.
In the case of leg wraps, there are those that stretch and are used for support (as in the Polo wraps that are used for Dressage schooling), and those that do not stretch and are used over padded quilt squares used for traveling and when in the stable. When researching which product will best suit your needs and the needs of your equine, check with equine professionals, check your local tack shop, or feed store, check at shows and expos, and on the internet. These places can all be valuable sources of information.
To learn more about Meredith Hodges and her comprehensive all-breed equine training program, visit LuckyThreeRanch.com or call 1-800-816-7566. Check out her children’s website at JasperTheMule.com. Also, find Meredith on Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, MeWe and Twitter.
Covered in TRAINING MULES & DONKEY: A LOGICAL APPROACH TO TRAINING, TRAINING WITHOUT RESISTANCE and EQUUS REVISITED at www.luckythreeranchstore.com
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