To help us grasp the importance of preserving our horses’ legs, let’s consider that all 1,200lbs+ of their muscle mass rests upon four delicate legs and hooves, each only a couple of inches wide. Your horses’ legs are packed with vital soft tissue structures and joints that are stressed when training and competing, leaving them susceptible to inflammation and injury.
As an owner, manager, trainer or groom, you can significantly influence the long-term health and soundness of the legs that carry your equine athlete through dressage tests or propel them over fences (or both, if you’re in eventing!). Here are some general proactive steps you can take to preserve your equine partner’s limbs, including using various therapeutic products like icing, liniments, Tendonil, poultices and Arnica.
What Lucile Vigourous tackles in this HorseGrooms Insiders resource
- Daily Leg Care
a. Checking for heat and swelling
b. Grooming
c. Minding your hoof care
d. Keeping the horse moving - Pre-Training or Showing Leg Care
a. Warm-up routine
b. Boots and polo wraps: yay or nay? - Post-Training or Showing Leg Care
a. Cool down routine
b. Stretching
c. Icing: yay or nay?
d. Liniments
e. Standing Wraps
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Photo courtesy of Arnd.nl
Lucile Vigouroux, MSc, is a freelance equine healthcare author with a master’s in equine performance, health, and welfare, and a bachelor’s in equine science. She is also an AAEVT-certified equine veterinary assistant passionate about sports medicine and rehabilitation. Originally from Paris, France, Lucile is now based in the beautiful Hudson Valley of New York. She’s the owner of ProPulsion Equine PEMF, LLC, where she manages a small team of professionals dedicated to providing wellness modalities—PEMF, red light therapy and kinesiology taping—to horses on the hunter/jumper show circuit up and down the East Coast.
