Yes. I wouldn’t say it’s common, but I’ve seen it on both dressage horses and jumpers. I have one horse that gets clipped every 8 weeks year round. In the summer, we leave a leg patch on him. You can barely see it, but it prevents him from getting little bald spots when he is in those transitional shedding phases.
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Its been a thing on the HITS Winter jumper circuit for the last several years and is starting to become more common with others. the grooms leave a small rectangle patch of hair (if they are a yak then its shaved down a bit) so the horses do not get spur rubs as easily. With the amount of washing and bathing the show horses get their skin does dry out quite a bit and gets sensitive.
My mare is really sensitive while shedding, ride without spurs at those times but may consider doing this!
It’s on the horse in the video that this thread is about. It is neither a circle nor a vertical line. It’s horizontal.
It’s a rectangular horizontal patch. Anyway if you watch the video of the Wandres horse you can see the hair patch. And yes, it is very different in color and hair length from the rest of the horse’s coat.
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Leaving the spur patch unclipped is very common. I leave one when I clip my horse every other time I clip him, which is every 4 weeks October - April.
Guys - I didn’t watch the video, so I don’t know what this guy was doing. But I can say that spur marks happen. Blood happens. None of it necessarily means the horse was being abused. I was HORRIFIED one day to get off my horse, after what I thought was a very nice ride, only to find a slightly bloody spur mark from my very blunt spurs.
My horse had been shedding and was always just more sensitive at that time of year. I called my trainer crying and feeling terrible, and she reminded me of the time we saw Steffen Peters get eliminated for blood. It happens and it happens to the best riders, sometimes at the worst time.
In my case, this was about 2 weeks before Regional Championships, so I rode without spurs for that time, and then used a TON of bag balm when I did put spurs on to prevent more chafing.
My new mare has hair that falls off when you look at her funny. Seriously, I have left marks on her when I wasn’t even hardly using my leg, especially in the winter.
Lets give people the benefit of the doubt that just because they’re leaving patches of hair doesn’t mean they are abusing their animals. Maybe they have a sensitive creature like my mare. Or they want to make doubly sure that they aren’t going to leave a mark on winter-clipped coat.
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I am in a rural area - watching an hour of video is a major task with low speed internet. But based on what I see in our CA shows, it is’nt widespread out here on the West Coast - at least not in the dressage world. Maybe in HJ world. I’ve never seen it, and I do show, scribe, and volunteer out here a LOT. Maybe I’ll start seeing it if it is the new trend - but honestly, I’ve NEVER seen anyone with a spur patch. I just spent a weekend scribing (3 rings all weekend long), and not a single horse I saw had that kind of a clip job - and most were clipped.
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I do agree - I’ve got a mare who is very sensitive, I mostly ride without spurs - she’s the only horse I’ve ever left a spur mark on, and I’ve pretty light with the spur contact and use rolling non-serrated spurs… And I have friends with super sensitive horses too - one who gets girth rubs, bridle rubs, fly mask rubs - she had to get her a specially made saddle pad because the stitching under the billet keepers was causing rubs. Some of them are princess and the pea, seriously.
You don’t need to watch the whole hour! You can click to the right time and watch the 2 minutes it takes for him to finish the test.
I don’t have any issue with leaving a patch of hair to protect a sensitive horse- I see it done all the time, and think it’s a good thing. I was concerned about the actions of this rider after he left the arena - the looks to the judge, the quick motions, the hand under the hat. That’s what looked weird to me. He looked as if he was trying to do something on the sly and I couldn’t figure out what that might be.
The clearing of rowels had not occurred to me either, and that sits a lot better than wiping off blood.
Its the WORST! Last year was my first winter with her, and we clipped her like anyone else. By the end of the winter, she looked like a rescue case with rubs from the saddle pad (like, the part of the saddle pad that has no contact with the saddle at all, on her side, behind the leg) and weird rubs from her blanket. And she gets girth rubs. And had the galloping skin rot this summer.
I’ve had her a year now, and we’re finding better ways to manage her specialness, but its a process!
For what its worth, I’ve actually left more spur marks with roller-ball spurs than with my rounded end spurs. I think that is also what the USDF research found as well. I can only guess as to why, but it may be due to the little space between the ball and the spur creating place for hair, etc to get stuck and rub.
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Dude he is clearly grabbing his reins with that hand under the hat. It’s really really clear.
Checking for/wiping off blood wouldn’t really make sense, because if there was blood, it would be more visible on the horse’s skin/coat than the spurs anyway, and he’d be eliminated no matter how clean his spurs were.
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I will see if I can make a screenshot that shows it, and that won’t end up too small & blurry, when loaded here.
Agree! I stopped using the roller ball ones the day I somehow managed to pinch my horse with one. He squealed and jumped about a foot off the ground with all four feet. I felt terrible 
This won’t work for every climate, but I blanket early and often to prevent having to clip. I clipped my current horse racing one winter and although I didn’t get spur rubs, I got a rub at the back of the saddle pad from not pulling it up into the channel for ONE ride. Since I quit clipping and started blanketing before the winter coat comes in I haven’t had to clip and haven’t had any other rubs. Knock on wood. I think part of it is the ends of the clipped hair are stubby and cause more friction, not just the (lack of) thickness or length of the hair.
Also helps to have one that loves wearing clothes, “I swear I won’t sweat if you bundle me up!” Heehee.
I contacted the busiest local professional body clipper to schedule my own horse’s clip for next week. And I asked her whether she’s ever done a clip like this locally, and, how common it is. They do dozens of horses per week at this time of year in our warm climate.
She said they do it sometimes, not a lot, and that they also suggest it when people are concerned about spur rubs on a horse who’s been sensitive, but when they still want the hair off for its comfort in work. I texted her the photo of the Wandres horse to be sure we were talking about the same patch. And she said, yes, they do exactly that here in AZ.
For my own dark bay horse I always have them leave a saddle pad area, and whether it looks really funny is up to the beholder. It doesn’t show in work of course, because he’s wearing tack. But driving or walking by when he’s out in a paddock, it’s very obvious even from a distance. I’ve had people ask about it many times, usually non-horsepeople. “Why does he have a square of brown hair on his back?”
If he were inclined toward sores from spurs, I would definitely try leaving the rectangle on the side, as well. I fortunately don’t have the issue but I know of at least two horses in our group who’ve had issues with extra-sensitive skin. [ATTACH=JSON]{“alt”:“Click image for larger version Name: IMG_4318.jpg Views: 1 Size: 24.3 KB ID: 10278707”,“data-align”:“none”,“data-attachmentid”:“10278707”,“data-size”:“full”}[/ATTACH]
I am uploading a photo that clearly shows the saddle patch that generates comments. Unfortunately the rail blocks a part of it but this is the best photo I found of him after a body clipping. It’s from last February.
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