Scrolling through the ‘Today’s Posts’ I found this thread… which got me thinking… what do you do to keep your fox hunters legs going throughout the season?
http://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/showthread.php?505275-Pre-amp-Post-event-leg-care
I am a big believer in turnout. I also do a warm sponge bath with liniment at the trailer before the tailgate. My mare will wear BoT quick wraps before and after the hunt for a few hours.
I think you take excellent care of your horse, SouthernYankee. My hunt horse WD-4D is a ranch horse from SD. He doesn’t wear shoes, boots, or any kind of leg protection. I’ve tried. I put him in bell boots and he pulled them off with his teeth --same with shipping boots, galloping boots, and standing wraps. So I gave up and he has hunted for 12 years with bare legs. After the hunt, he likes to roll in the dust of the indoor arena. Then if he’s wet, I rub him dry with a towel, but usually he’s dry and I just put him in his stall at the hunt club to eat his hay while I go to the club house for brunch. He’s really low maintenance. When I have him on a distance ride (200-300 miles) I wash him at the end of each ride (5-6 hours) with Vitroline, but nothing special on his legs. W is out 24/7. He comes into the barn to eat. He has a 3-sided shed that he really only uses in the dead of summer. He has a coat like a buffalo.
What I see other people using on our hunt are eventing type Woof galloping boots. What I’ve seen fail on our hunts are Professional Choice leg boots (tendon boots). These get wet and start to sag pretty quick, and soon the horse is stepping all over them. Polo wraps don’t work well either. They come loose and start dragging on the ground. Our hunt goes through really rough country with brambles and corn stubble. Except for a whip who plowed into a wire fence at speed, I’ve never seen a horse with a bad leg wound. (The whip horse was fine --his rider is a veterinarian and she sewed him back up before she hauled home --she did the same for her brother who cut his hand falling --we’re a tough bunch!).
When I started hunting, I stopped babying my horse’s legs.
I know that sounds backwards, but I decided that if I was going to ask her to perform for long stretches of time on uneven ground/pavement/through mud, etc, her legs needed to be tougher all around. So I stopped using boots and polos for riding in every day life on the theory that if her legs could not be supported while hunting (our hunt really frowns on it–for good reasons, I think), they should not grow used to it at home. Otherwise, I think it’s a bit like doing football practice in pads and then sending a player into the game without.
I always check all four legs for wounds and heat after a hunt and if it’s been particularly rough, I will use liniment or wraps.
Anecdotally, I have found that she had more scrapes and lumps before I started hunting her than she does while on season.
I use tendon boots out of habit, I use the moulded hard shell type. My mare is a draft cross and not prone to getting rubs so this works well for her, I usually secure with electrical tape too.
I feel her legs often, that way I know right away if something feels different. My BO is great about feeling her legs the day after too.
After hunting she gets liniment spray all over and down her tendons.
I have back on track wraps but I’m bad about using them, I should pull them out of storage as I do think they help!
I also believe in lots of turnout and I’m lucky to have my horse in a situation where she can be out 24/7 in winter and stalled under a fan during the hottest part of the day during the summer.
Occasionally I will poultice but since I don’t event her anymore I don’t bother and it was more that everyone else did so I followed the trend, rather than me thinking it had any specific bearing on her, since we never showed above Novice.
I also keep leg care very simple.
I don’t use boots other than maybe for a new young pony early on in the cubbing season for a few hunts until they get the hang of things. There is simply too much really heavy, clay-like mud where I hunt for boots to be very practical once winter arrives. Even the woof boot, neoprene xc type boots often end up sliding down the legs when people try to use them. I will use bell boots if it seems like a good decision for a specific horse.
After a typical hunt, I will hose or wipe down the legs with warm water to get off enough mud that I can see and feel them clearly. Then, the pony gets kicked out in the field overnight (they live out 24/7). I check again in the morning and would begin icing or cold hosing at that point if there was any inflammation.
I would wrap overnight if my horse had to stay somewhere where it had to be in a stall, but if they can go out, I tend to think that moving around is better for them than having to be cooped up so they can be wrapped. If the hunt was exceptionally hard or long compared to what the horse is used to, I might cold hose or ice when I got them back home, followed by a few days off (still turned out 24/7) with daily checking of the legs. I’ve only done that a couple of times - all when the ground was much harder than I expected it to be. The horses at our hunt get very used to dealing with the mud so I get more concerned when the ground is hard!
I also keep leg care very simple. No boots, no wraps, etc. Two horses that get turned out (at home) in bell boots but don’t wear for hunting. Every time I’ve tried to hunt with some kind of boot (no matter what kind) they either get lost, come partially undone, or get something caught in them that has to be more uncomfortable than having no boot at all. If we’ve hunted hard, I make sure the horses have plenty of hay and water and a soft place to lay down when we get home.
Leg wise, I actually worry most about the horses’ skin. The horses we hunt are turned out a lot and we live in a wet climate, and then we hunt through a lot of mud. So we keep a close eye out for dew poisoning and do an antiseptic shampoo of the legs periodically during wet weather. I don’t like to clip the legs as I think the hair provides some protection from brambles, etc. but it also holds moisture next to the skin, so sometimes that necessitates some extra care.
Can I ask why most people hunt without boots? I understand polos and sports medicine boots being an issue, I also don’t like either. But what about boots designed for XC? Ones made to hold up to water and such? Not judging! Really interested to know.
In the region where I hunt, the mud is heavy and thick clay-like stuff that will stick to boots, weigh them down and drag them down the horses’ legs over the course of the hours that we are out hunting (much longer than a horse would wear them at an event). Some people also worry about adding/trapping excess heat near the tendons which is also more of a concern with additional hours of riding.
Because hunting is a sport done in a group, there is not always a good or safe time to stop, dismount and adjust equipment like boots. So if your horse can go without, it is simpler to do so.
In my case, I also hunt on ponies who are tend to be sound and sturdy little beasts anyways and sometimes actually finding quality XC boots that fit them well can be a challenge.
[QUOTE=Couture TB;8965256]
Can I ask why most people hunt without boots? I understand polos and sports medicine boots being an issue, I also don’t like either. But what about boots designed for XC? Ones made to hold up to water and such? Not judging! Really interested to know.[/QUOTE]
We go through all sorts of mud and water and deepish terrain and even the best fitting boots will not keep out sand, pebbles, small sticks, etc. That’s fine (IMO) if you’re only going for a few miles on an XC course and will be able to take them off shortly, but sometimes we hunt for upwards of 6 hours. Leaving an irritant in a boot for that long is a recipe for disaster, I think.
Boots are very uncommon in the hunt field here in New Zealand, partially because we just don’t see the need for them, but mainly because we all jump wire. If a horse is wearing boots and skims its legs over the top wire, there is always a chance if the edge of the boot catching on it and turning the horse over.
[QUOTE=Couture TB;8965256]
Can I ask why most people hunt without boots? I understand polos and sports medicine boots being an issue, I also don’t like either. But what about boots designed for XC? Ones made to hold up to water and such? Not judging! Really interested to know.[/QUOTE]
I"m in the same boat as everyone else, we may hunt for 4+ hours. I whip-In. We cover a lot of ground that can be very hard or swampy, we have slick sticky clay, and hunt farmland and woods. Finding a boot that isn’t going to hold moisture or overheat the leg is hard, finding one that won’t get mud, muck, or sticks is hard, and finding one that isn’t going to possibly get hung in wire or vines is hard.
I have hunted with Eskadron xc boots on my mare once. And only once. I chose to put boots on her because she had whacked her leg in a previous hunt and there was a little knot on the inside of her leg (no heat, swelling, or tenderness), I was trying to keep her legs protected. I was whipping in, It was an active day and the hounds ran a coyote cleat from one meet site past another meet site and plum out of the country. I was one of the whips that watched everything unfold (it was exhilarating and beautiful) I went with the hounds when they got on the line. After we finally regrouped and let everyone rest for a minute I got off my mare to check the boots, they looked fine but I still took them off. Sure enough there was a 6" stick sandwiched between the boot and the back of her tendon. Thankfully she was fine but it could have been VERY bad. Freak accident? Maybe. But I’m not risking it again.
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