Sports Medicine Boots & Endurance

[Rides 2 Far <rides2far@juno.com>]

> Due to my horses slopey pasterns and a slight strain my vet advised >
metrongly to start having my horse wear them ALL the time while > riding>
and even wrapping her legs while resting in her pen. 

Was this an endurance vet?  You know, some dressage people recommend full
boots just to let the horse play in a pen for awhile. :-P  Back in 1988 I
had ONE whole year (50 miles) of experience and was quite the expert.  A
friend of mine had a 4 year old Arab that she was going to do endurance
with and I pointed out to her that he had *really* long sloping pasterns
and probably wouldn't hold up long.  That horse is still competing and
last time I checked he had over 4000 miles and had done something like
18-100 milers and competed in the North American Championships.  So much
for my vast knowledge. :-P  By the way, he never wore boots. If my horse
needed wraps just to stand around I wouldn't do endurance on him...but
somehow I find it hard to believe your horse needs them just to stand
around.  How did he get his "slight injury"?  If it was walking to the
water trough, O.K. I might worry. If it was on a ride and in any way
justified, heck that happens all the time.  I'd just let him heal, bring
him along slowly and forget the paranoid vet.

Angie
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