When I was learning to ride at a hunter barn, I learned to do polos and always did polos or boots on the school horses and my horse. It made sense to me since there was more likelihood of a horse clipping himself, hitting a rail, etc., with jumping. For flatwork though I rarely wrapped or booted my horse, and once I switched to dressage, I stopped altogether… my horse doesn’t interfere and I was always of the attitude that I didn’t want to create a reliance on support wraps since they couldn’t compete in them, and I’d rather practice at home the same way I would at shows.
But now he’s almost 15 and I’m starting to mentally debate whether to start wrapping him for work… since I’m used to seeing all the horses wrapped at clinics and in videos and with all the BNTs, I assume there must be more advantages to wrapping than not wrapping. Or maybe it’s just aesthetics and tradition. So really, what are the pros and cons?
My horse has no history of leg injuries, and hasn’t had any swelling or stocking up or anything like that in the almost 11 years I’ve owned him, knock on wood. So I’m perfectly happy to keep on saving myself time and not wrapping him… but if there are more benefits I’m not thinking of I’m open to dusting off my old polos.
