Really. Why do dressage riders always use white polo wraps? Is it a style? Protection? Polo wraps don’t provide support; a piece of cloth supporting the downward force of a 1,000+ lb horse, not happening. Overheating the tendons isn’t desirable either.
So why the white polos?
They make the horse look like a flashier mover. It’s a style.
If you notice, four long whites is popular in WB breeding, then there is no need for white wraps.
In what context?
They do provide strike protection, they’re not used for support.
Would I use boots instead of polos? Yep, less work, much less room for error. But polos have been around for yearrrrrrrrs, long before there were many options for boots, especially fancier boots, so yes there’s a lot of tradition there too.
Lots of horses have some amount of white on some legs, but not even white, and not all 4, so white polos can help un-trick the eye about where a horse is moving symmetrically or not.
You can’t show in them, (there are exceptions), but they can be used in warmup.
I use elastic wraps over liners, which DO provide support as well as strike protection. As for the study that supposedly showed that boots and wraps cause damage, look closely at how it was conducted. Boots and wraps were left on for hours, which doesn’t compare to their use in a 45-min training ride.
not exactly
The wraps were put on, the horses exercised for only 20 minutes, and then “standing recovery” for 180 minutes.
The wrapped legs heated up during that 20 minutes to the point of being able to affect cell damage, and did not return to normal during the standing period
“They wore the boot or bandage on one forelimb, and the other forelimb served as the control as they performed 20 minutes of exercise followed by 180 minutes of standing recovery.”
https://thehorse.com/1101094/do-boots-and-wraps-overheat-horses-legs/
Imagine what happens when you continue working (likely harder) in the minutes after the 20 minute mark.
Yes, take the boots off after work, for sure, but the study did show that damaging temperatures occure well within the amount of time horses are worked.
I like white for the reasons given above, plus I am FAR more likely to wash them often than coloured ones that don’t show dirt as well. I prefer more laundry to not being able to see dirt and sweat. Bonus, if you hack in them, any hitchhikers (animal or vegetable) are easy to spot as you’re removing them.
And, note in that study that polos were by far the hottest wraps in their study.
Fair enough. But the graph makes no distinction between the types of leg coverings. And for coverings that are used as suggested in the study (remove immediately and cold hose or ice), the strike protection and support are worth the increased temperature.
In my case, I conducted a study with one participant 
My horse had a small suspensory tear, so I did a week tack-walking with bare legs, a week with vented boots, and a week with eskadron wraps over liners. I repeated this twice. In both cases, the only time the leg was tighter and less swollen upon return was with the eskadrons.
Makes sense. I never use plain polos.
It doesn’t matter for what’s shown. The line is the mean temperature of all the leg coverings and " * All treated limbs reached temperatures that negatively affect tendon cells." So imagine how much higher some of the readings were if the lines are the mean.
Based on what? If you’re working a horse pretty hard, and his legs are at temperatures shown to induce cell damage, it’s causing damage while they’re working. How much of that is expected to be inconsequential, or reversible with therapy post-workout?
Ambient temperature? Temperature of legs?
Walking probably can’t be compared to any of this, since that’s not nearly as much work as normal rides. And also, you were addressing an inflammatory response, and anything that provides enough of the right kind of pressure would be something with reasonable compression. That’s a totally separate issue from heat.
Did the study look at standing in a trailer wearing shipping boots too?
Polos or boots also help keep legs clean during warmup, etc.
afaik it was a study on the effect on exercise, so no.
But no doubt some of that information could be reasonably extrapolated to trailering. I know for me, I’ve had 2 different types of shipping boots - fleece lined, and foam with a mesh inner lining, and the latter resulted in cooler legs on arrival because that mesh allowed for more air flow. However, I couldn’t tell you if the temp was to the point of damage, I just know cooler, vs warmer.
Yes, the only time my guy with 4 high whites is wrapped knee to coronary band is in the warmup at shows so he stays clean. Liners under wraps with bell boots to the bottom of the wrap.
Big moving horses that fall on the forehand in extended trot are much more likely to interfere especially if the 2/2 trot rhythm is subtly disrupted (DAP) or working in deeper footing. And shod horses can really rip themselves open.
Horses with actual chronic or acute or healing injury can benefit from wrapping to reduce swelling.
People who take the time to learn to wrap polos love to show it off 
and there is a whole world of matchy matchy saddle pad, fly veil and polo wrap sets. People like to dress their horses up and polos are relatively affordable.
I never learned to wrap polos, I don’t like the look (I think it breaks up the line of the leg like knee socks with a mini skirt) but also my Paint mare is short strided, barefoot, and uphill so interference is unlikely.
We also trailer bare legged.
The real thing to show off is how you unwrap a polo.
Took a while for me to unwrap it into a perfect roll so it could be put on the next time.
And learning where to start a wrap, which direction (god, i’ve forgotten, wrap to the outside?), and how not to stretch it over the knee.
My horse consistently forged (overstepped with his back legs), so I used wraps.
I’ve never seen that done. Ever.
I would also think the risk of being in such close quarters with the horse’s legs for so much longer would not be worth any savings of time compared to pulling the wrap off quickly and then rolling it afterwards. But that’s just me.
I’ll add that, during a lesson or clinic, the teacher can see the horse’s legs more clearly in white wraps. Compared to my brown horse against brown footing, one almost struggles to see exactly what her legs are doing. If those at least stand out, you can get an immediate, intuitive impression of how the horse is using their body.
that being said, ime polos are indeed the hotest wraps I’ve ever used, and don’t use them anymore. I just do white brush boots.
Well, call me Dinosaur (Wrapasaurus Rex? 
).
That’s how I was taught & can still do it, to this day.
However, being left handed, I always had to remind myself how to start the wrap 
I’ll be the Devil’s Advocate & say polos do provide some support - like compression socks.
And I was taught never use on trails as they catch all sorts of crap & if they get wet they get heavy & can unroll.
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