Leg wraps every time you ride?

I was wondering everyones thought on leg wraps for working your horse. I have always been taught to wrap your horse every time you work them, but don't somewhat agree with it. I don't necessarily wrap her every time I ride, but I do when I jump her, do barrels, lunging, and do things such as up and down hills on long strenuous trail rides. She has come up lame before from injuries out in the pasture such as slipping in mud, etc. so her legs aren't really strong. So i'm kinda wondering if her legs being the way they are, is caused by over wrapping them to much and not letting her muscles grow normally, or if I should use them more often because they are weak? A picture below is my mare in her leg wraps that I use. They are the professional choice Elite leg wraps. Please let me know what you think...

I have the same boots in black,lol. Although it is definitely a good idea to use them when you are going to be traversing some butt scraping hills and crazy terrain, barrels, jumping, etc.... I probably wouldn't use them on less strenuous rides. I do think it's important to give them time without them because it will weaken the natural musculature and tendons in the leg. It's the same with us, if we use an ankle brace TOO much, it weakens the ankle.

I don't really buy into the idea that wraps weaken legs. I personally don't use them every time I ride, but it's more because I don't have the reason to need boots on some of the time. I think with conditioning and turn out, your horse builds their legs up enough to not be damaged by over booting them.

You could always just get a set of brushing boots to use when you don't use the SMBs. That way her legs are protected from bumps and scrapes, but they don't have the added support.

I always use boots with my guy except at our dressage shows - polos sometimes, other times brushing boots. He hasn't had any lameness problems in the past 3 or 4 years (knock on wood!)

I use splint boots on my girls every time I ride in ring. Because with them being clumsy and leg yield exercises I don't need any problems. I don't use them on trails though as my horse loves to sit in water for half-hour and they get too wet and heavy.

I always work my horses pretty hard, so yes, I use them pretty much all the time; and especially on horses I am training...no sense in damaging someone else's horses legs!

If I am not planning on working a horse hard, I will just wrap the fronts, but if I am going to work them hard, I wrap all four. I have a front set of SMBs (gotta get rears), and just use polos on her hinds right now.

When I work a horse, it's for 2-3 hours at a time...the rest of the time they are unwrapped, so I don't believe that whole "you'll weaken the legs" business...if they are used 24/7, sure, but for the time they are worked? No, I don't think so.

I don't buy into the 'it weakens the legs' thing either. I wrap/boot my horses llegs usually, sometimes if its super hot out I don't because it just to hot out. But again, like everyone else said, they are only on for part of the day.Horses becoming lame from slipping in mud and stuff just happens, sometimes to more horses then others, but boots doesnt really effect that I don't think.

I like to go with out a lot of the time, because I want my horses to know where their feet are. If they kick their leg a few times they learn they don't want to do that anymore & put more effort into making that not happen.

I don't believe that it weakens legs either. There aren't actually any muscles in the legs below the knees/hocks. So you aren't weakening muscles or inhibiting muscle growth... because there are none there. You're just protecting tendons/ligaments/skin.





The only time I don't use boots is when I go on a slow trail ride. I always use them for arena work and faster trail rides (which is usually the type of trail ride I go on).

THANK YOU! Finally a room of people who don't believe the gossip garbage that SMB's weaken the horses legs.

I don't believe that garbage either, there is no proof to support the gossip.

Anyways - OMG!!! THEY MAKE BABY BLUE SMB'S!!! I MUST HAVE THEM!!!!