Travel, Rehab or Show – Keep Legs Looking and Feeling Great!

I’ve blogged about my super sensitive thoroughbred mare, Katie, a few times.  Our history is kind of interesting – she was the first horse I leased when I was young, then a friend bought her and they dabbled in dressage, trails, and jumping for a while before eventually she was given to a woman who wanted a pleasure horse.  That woman was unable to keep her, and she came back to me.  I was in a place where I had just sold my most recent project horse, and where my older goofy percheron gelding needed his workload reduced.  Katie is a very well schooled dressage horse, and she’s been helping me reach a lot of personal riding goals.  She and I are working hard this summer, showing quite a bit, and traveling to and from plenty of places.

I realized early on in our season that her sensitivity was something I would have to stay on top of to keep her in show condition.  After our weekend recognized show, her legs were stocky from staying in a stall overnight (she’s normally out 24/7) and I realized that I would need to figure out how to prevent this from happening, again.

I knew that my #1 weapon against the stocky leg fight would be to walk her more when I was on the show grounds.  After an early morning, a warm up and a test, it’s so temping to untack, plop a horse in a stall in front of a big pile of hay, and collapse on a chair or go run off to grab a bite to eat.  I’ve found that even if I keep Katie out long enough to walk her to the food stand, or have her graze on a longer lead rope while I try not to fall asleep in a chair between ride times, it helps keep her blood flowing enough to reduce the swelling she’ll get from standing around.  I still needed to address the fact that she stocks up from being in over night, though, and that’s when I decided to purchase a pair of the Draper wraps.

I love my other draper equine therapy products, and figured I would love the recovery wraps, too.  I was right!  Goodness, I have found so many uses for my pair, and have been so happy with how they’ve performed!

In addition to wrapping Katie when she’s in a stall, I wrap her on our way home from events and from intense clinics. She trailers well, but I know that after hard work she is fatigued, and the wraps support her so well that I no longer worry about long hauls after long days.  I use liniment that is safe to use under wraps, and her legs have never looked tighter and cleaner.  I can also be confident that any lower leg soreness from working hard is addressed by the fantastic draper fabric and materials in the therapeutic leg wraps.

I’ve used them for my big horse Gali who has wind puffs, and for my cuter-than-words project pony, Rowdy, who has a fat leg from an old splint bone fracture.  Both of their puffy legs have improved significantly with the Recovery wraps, and I know that these will have a spot in my tack trunk for a long, long time.

Guest blog this week written by Kim Magaraci, who would never dream of hanging up her stirrups for a tennis racket, and not just because she’s got terrible hand-eye coordination.