Angela Clark Equine Services

06/17/2022

Boots and bandages - are we harming our horses as we try to protect them?

Bandaging and booting our horses is becoming more and more popular, especially with the popularity of matchy matchy sets. But are we doing more harm than good? Most people will have come across the articles in magazines and comments from vets saying they are, and yet still they become more and more popular. Why is that? Why do riders still cover their horses in thick fleece bandages or fluffy boots despite the dangers? Tradition I suppose. Wanting to fit in. Or just habit, some will feel like they haven’t finished tacking up if they haven’t put the boots on.

I know this isn’t about dentistry (for which I apologise) but I am a vet first and foremost, and as a dressage rider I am asked why I don’t use bandages all the time. I’ve written about this several times now and no one pays attention, so rather than stating facts and quoting research, I’d like to take you through my journey of discovery, please bear with me. Facts and papers are at the end.

Rewind 12 years and I was in my final year at vet school. Prior to and during vet school I had a horse and we did dressage. I had planned to ODE but this horse pulled every tendon and ligament known to vet kind. He spent more time out of work than in. Each time I would up my game with the latest boots/bandages on the market. From fluffy boots to wraps to sports fetlock boots, fleece bandages to gamgee and cotton to the half fleece/half elastic bandages. I learnt new techniques for better support, figure of 8 bandaging to cradle the fetlock etc etc. I’d been there and done it. My collection was extensive.

Right at the end of vet school I had my rotations. I chose Equine lameness as one of my options. During in this I very vividly remember a wet lab with Dr Renate Weller where she had a skinned horses leg (showing all of the tendons and ligaments) in a machine that mimicked the pressures a horse applies to their limbs. She took us through walk, trot, canter and gallop, loading this leg so we could see the inside workings of the horses leg without the skin. It was fascinating I can tell you, and I very clearly remember thinking about my horse and wondering how on earth we are suppose to support this limb when it undergoes these incredible forces! Half a ton of animal pushing down a tiny spindle of a leg held by tendons barely thicker than my thumb. Craziness!

Fast forward just a few short months and I was a fully qualified vet in the big wide world. I attended my first BEVA Congress and during the break I wandered around the stalls looking at the latest inventions and technologies companies bring to these gatherings. Here I came across a company with the Equestride Boot which caught my eye. Now if you haven’t seen this boot, it’s wonderful and I’ve since used it a few times in rehabbing very severe tendon and ligament injuries with great success. The boot is a carbon fibre boot that stops the fetlock dropping, which stops the tendons and ligaments being fully loaded while they heal. This boot is super strong. You couldn’t ride a horse in it as it is limiting the range of motion so much, but they can move about easily enough at the lower settings to rehab etc. The guy on the stand (I’m afraid I can’t remember his name) showed me their research and in the straight talking Irish way explained the stupidity of expecting a thin piece of material to support a horse. And of course it can’t! Literally no bandage or boot (short of this very expensive carbon fibre rehab boot) is capable of reducing the amount the fetlock drops. Thinking back to Dr Weller’s demonstration, I could very clearly see how ridiculous I had been to ever believe a scrap of material could do anything to reduce or support that pressure.

But the boots/bandages don’t actually cause any harm do they? Surely it’s ok to use them on the off chance they might help and if we look good in the meantime, great! Well, not long after this, research started appearing that got me very worried about my bandage collection. Heat. Anyone that uses bandages and boots will not be surprised to see sweat marks under their bandages/boots after they’ve been removed. They trap a lot of heat. The horses body and legs generate a lot of heat when working. The tendons/ligaments in the leg, along with an increased blood flow generate ALOT of heat. Fleece bandages/boots in particular, hold this heat in the horses leg. Very few boots and virtually no bandages (especially if you use a pad under) allow the legs to breath adequately. This heat is easily enough to kill tendon/ligament cells. Each tendon/ligament is made of thousands and thousands of cells all lined up end on end and side by side in long thin spindles. They stretch and return to their original shape and size like an elastic band, absorbing and redistributing the pressures applied from further up the leg and from the ground impact below. All of these cells must work together as one to do this effectively.

Just a little side step here to explain how tendons/ligaments heal. A tendon/ligament cell can not be replaced like for like. They always heal with scar tissue. This is why reinjury is so much more likely if a tendon/ligament is blown. The fibrous scar tissue doesn’t stretch, it isn’t capable of stretching or absorbing the impact of a horses movement. It will always be a weak spot. In a full blown sprain/strain the whole (or most) of the tendon has been damaged. But this heat injury might just kill a few cells at a time. Those few cells are replaced by fibrous scar tissue, then next time a few more etc etc. Like a rubber band degrading over time the tendon/ligament loses its elasticity and eventually goes snap. Then you’ve fully blown a tendon/ligament. The injury didn’t start to happen at that moment, but that was the final straw. The damage adds up over time, each time thermal necrosis (vet word for cell death) occurs.

So if using boots/bandages can not offer any sort of support, and using them generates heat that slowly damages the tendons/ligaments until they give way. Why use them? Protection. This is the only reason to use boots. To stop the horse brushing, injuring themselves catching a pole or over cross country. But for goodness sake make sure your boots are breathable! If the horse is sweaty under the boot but not above or below, the boot is not breathable enough. And don’t use fleece bandages just because you like the colour. These fleece bandages are the worst at holding heat in the leg, way above the threshold for thermal necrosis to the cells of the tendons and ligaments. If your horse doesn’t need protection, don’t use boots. I haven’t for the last 12 years and *touch wood* I haven’t had a single tendon/ligament injury in any of my horses. I will never go back to boots or especially bandages now. I don’t use them for schooling, lunging, jumping, travelling, turnout, stable, in fact I don’t use them at all. Ever. But I don’t hunt or XC.

I hope you have found my story useful and can make informed decisions on boots and bandaging going forward.

For more information on the Equestride boot and their research into support offered by boots and bandages, visit http://www.equestride.com/ and https://www.equinetendon.com/services/equestride/

The horses leg under the compression machine at the Irish Equine rehabilitation and fitness centre https://fb.watch/cmVMt6-iOJ/ (I highly recommend you watch this incredible video. It clearly shows the amount of force the leg goes through and demonstrates the real purpose of boots)

Other relevant papers-
https://equimanagement.com/.amp/articles/horse-skin-temperature-under-boots-after-exercise
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8f15/0ea480edca142260d01f419f80d2e7e7fb29.pdf
http://www.asbweb.org/conferences/1990s/1998/59/index.html

Edit 1 - I am getting asked about stable wraps very frequently. This post is about riding, the tendons and blood flow create heat which is trapped by bandages/boots during exercise. This doesn’t occur in the stable stood still. If the horse has a strain/sprain resulting in inflammation, then there is an increase in blood flow and there is heat being created. In this situation you should not be bandaging. But if it’s cold and an old horse needs stable wraps to keep the joints warm and improve sluggish blood flow (filled legs) you can use the heat trapping to your advantage. But you need to be careful in summer.

Edit 2 - the other thing I’m being asked about is compression. Compression DOES NOT control inflammation. The inflammation still occurs, but the swelling can not escape the bandages and the increase in internal pressure reduces blood flow, causing ischemic damage. Like laminitis within the hoof. The hoof capsule prevents swelling so the inflammation expands inwards and cuts off the blood supply. This is why laminitis is so painful and difficult to treat. Compression is only useful in the case of leaky vessels, for example reduced blood pressure, reduced movement so the blood isn’t being pumped backup the legs, or osmotic imbalances eg low protein with diarrhoea. In these situations, compression of the legs can encourage blood to return to the vessels and continue circulating.

06/14/2021

🐎 Since gastric ulcers are a common occurrence in horses, trainers and owners can use PEMF to alleviate the horses pain and inflammation! 🙌🏼 Find out how to help your horse with MagnaWave here>> https://bit.ly/3pRUxg9

04/08/2021

04/03/2021

06/18/2020

“🅸🅽🅹🅴🅲🆃🅸🅾🅽🆂”
Re-Share!

It’s almost become a dirty word 🙊

We seem to have 3 groups of people, those who never inject, those who are scared to inject, and those who do it regularly.

Now, I will say, being in north Texas, we have a plethora of amazing vets on every corner. Throw a rock, you’ll hit one. In my travels, I do realize not everyone is so lucky to be so close to excellent vets.

There are many reasons for injections.

Sometimes it’s an injury, stress, a fall, bad shoeing, etc... that may need to be done once, fix the problem, time off, etc... and may never need to be done again.

Sometimes it’s just maintenance, because we use these athletes, to their limits, weekly, monthly, or however much you may haul. Rodeo ground, jackpot ground, hauling, standing in parking lots, just general wear and tear.

Now let’s start off with why injections have a bad rep. It is common knowledge in human medicine that cortisone (regularly used because there is no better steroid to reduce inflammation) is degenerative to cartilage in a high motion joint. What’s this mean? Well, have you heard the story, “I got my horse injected every year, then every 6 months, then every 3, and now they don’t work.” This is why. While some studies say it’s ok to use it sporadically, over time, the side effects can be irreversible. This is where you need a vet to be on the side of longevity in your equine partner. Cortisone may get you to the next rodeo, results seen in as quick as a day, but it’s not the best long term solution.

So what’s the alternative? Hyaluronic acid. HA is in your body naturally, and can be used to lubricate the joints. It also has shown no adverse effects to the cartilage in the joints. HA can take 7-12 days to see full results.

Typically, when we do a lameness exam, we will block out specific areas until we find exactly where the pain is located. When the vet does an injection, many times they will drain excess fluid off of the joint. This can be thick, watery, etc... the viscosity can tell you quite a lot about the health of the joint. Is it irritated? Inflamed? Was there a trauma? These are great questions to discuss with your vet.

In my 15ish years of training for the public, in about the last 5, I have learned I cannot out train pain. (Read that again!!)There have been horses that simply cannot do a task, whether it be breaking at the poll, being soft laterally, sticking an inside hind leg in a turn, or just hitting funny on their feet, I can train and train and train, and it may help a little, but it cannot do what releasing the pressure and lubricating the joint can. Sometimes said horse will show no outward signs of lameness. I might just feel it in a turn, or performing a task. They might be sound as a dollar across hard ground.

Now to those who say “my horse is fine.” I want to tell you a story: a few years ago I ran a horse at the BFA and missed the short round in the derby by 1/10th of a second. I had been winning on him before that, I had done lameness exams, he showed no significant pain. No nothing really, he was a winner.

A friend of mine wanted to borrow him for the Fort Worth Pro Rodeo, and suggested doing a bone scan, she wanted a baseline, so that we knew he was ok to do some serious rodeos. Results came back, his hock was hot, and after an X-ray, he had a HUGE slab fracture in his hock. He NEVER took a lame step. From the looks of it healing, they estimated it to have been there around 2 months. He NEVER took a bad step. He was winning. Tell me that didn’t hurt like hell and he just kept on trying anyway.

Some of you may know Mr Jay 💕 and after they put a screw in his hock, he went on to win a ton more money!! Made Texas Highschool Rodeo Finals, set arena records, won super shows, but obviously he was so tough!! I think about him every time someone tells me their horse is fine. Are they? Or are they like Jay? Would run with a broken leg to please you?

This is all food for thought, and my experiences, I am not a vet lol just a barrel racer who learns from experience and likes to work a lot less on horses that feel a lot better.

Of course if you have more questions, feel free to ask your vet. I highly recommend Dr. Don Lee of Double X Equine, he has helped me succeed on many horses that others thought wouldn’t make it.

📷 Pictured is fluid drained off a TMJ joint. This horse was stiff to the left and right. I noticed a difference in his head placement the very next ride. With vet work and riding he went from the 5D to winning the 1D.

Just imagine the pressure they feel, and what we can’t see.

http://redhotrunninghorsesblog.com/2020/06/18/injections/

06/05/2020

03/18/2020

The first step in dealing with any rapidly evolving situation like this is to take a deep breath and think logically. Let’s all do that. Breath IN. Breath OUT. Our world has rapidly changed in the last 5 days. It happened a little earlier for Asia and then Europe. I do not intend for this post to ...

03/18/2020

Dear valued customers,

As the COVID-19 outbreak continues to spread I have consistently looked for ways to keep Angela Clark Equine Services open and ensure the health and safety of my clients and their families.

However, after a great deal of careful consideration I have decided to temporarily cancel all appointments until further notice. This is the right thing to do for the health and safety of my valued clients and their families.

Please do not hesitate to contact me during this time regarding services or future appointments, as well as products I continue to sell via text/email.

In the meantime, thank you for your understanding and patience during this time and I wish everyone good health.

03/04/2020

TEACHING TUESDAY
BEWARE OF AIR QUALITY IN ARENA
Airborne particles and ammonia fumes in your horse's stall are a concern, but so is the air quality in your indoor arena.
A dusty indoor arena can be as harmful to your horse's respiratory health as the air in the filthiest stall, and possibly more so because a working horse breathes harder and pulls particles deep into his lungs. Initially, he may simply cough a bit, but over the long-term severe lung damage can occur. A horse ridden regularly in a dusty arena can develop heaves years down the road or end up with permanently diminished lung capacity.
It's not difficult to tell if an arena is too dusty. If you need to blow your own nose after a ride and the tissue is filled with footing particles, that's a clear indictor of poor air quality. It doesn't have to be that obvious, though. Wipe the top of a mounting block, chair or ledge in the arena, or clean a wall-mounted arena mirror. Then, monitor how long it takes for dust to accumulate again. Ideally, it will be a week or more before there is an appreciable layer. If you can write your name in the dust after a single ride, the footing in the arena is dusty enough to pose a significant threat to your horse's lungs.
Keep in mind that it's not only your horse's lungs that can be damaged by dusty footing, but your own. Riders and instructors who breathe in particulate-laden air are prone to respiratory illness, not just from the irritation of the dust, but from an overtaxed immune system as their bodies work hard to clear the foreign debris from their lungs.
Dampening arena footing with water may cut down on the dust slightly for a short period of time, but the only long-term solution is to re place the footing. There is a wide select ion of modern, dust-free footings available and they are worth the investment at every price point.