Romriell Performance Horses

04/24/2024

Good info!

DRESSAGE TRIVIA:

Do you know the answer to this "CORNER CONUNDRUM?" 🤔

How deep are you supposed to ride into your corners?

The answer is, it depends, and here's why:👇

Information is VAGUE out there! But according to the USEF Rule Book, “Corners should be ridden as one-quarter of a volte appropriate to the level of the test (10 meters at training-First Levels, 8 meters at Second-Fourth Levels and 6 meters above Fourth Level).”
[USEF Rule Book DR109]

But in reality, it depends on the development of both the horse and the rider. And in my humble opinion, this is the BEST answer. 🙌
It is far better to ride a good corner that will help support you and your horse for the next movement than to try to jam yourself into a black hole 😉

So definitely strive for the USEF guidelines, but only go as deep as you and your horse can without disturbing the rhythm, balance, and harmony.

04/22/2024

Something we discuss a lot in our classes or face to face is how the horse needs to adjust to carry a crooked rider.

“Load a wheelbarrow heavily to one side as in the center illustration. Now push the wheelbarrow, and feel how it pulls to the weighted side and how you are forced to lean in that direction to compensate. That’s how your horse feels when you sit unevenly in the saddle, as shown in the left image. When you sit evenly, the horse will be centered and balanced as shown in the illustration on the right.” - ref Sharon Sweet

If we look at the left image how the horse loads the right shoulder and falls out. 🧐

03/24/2024

RPH Summer Camp Dates

June 4-6th ages 7 and under
June 11-14th ages 8 and up
June 25-27th ages 7 and under
July 8-11th ages 8 and up
July 15-18th ages 8 and up
July 29-31st ages 7 and under

Priority will be given to current RPH students. Any spots open after they have chosen their weeks will be given to non RPH students. Please message me to get on a waiting list. These spots will fill up fast. I do reserve the right to change age groups or dates depending on my show schedule.

03/18/2024

Good things to remember, as Horseshow season is getting ready to start!

Copied and it’s worth reading…

As we enter Horse Show Season
1. Horses don’t get broke at home. Be brave and enter!
2. EVERY disappointment at the show is a learning opportunity..... Be humble, be open to change.
3. Everyone gets nervous. Everyone has bad days. Everyone makes mistakes. Literally: EVERYONE!
4. Don’t watch others in the warmup ring and start changing what you have been doing - if you see something cool or you want to step up your game that’s homework for after the show!
5. When we run out of knowledge, we often punish our horses. Seek help instead.
6. Be a competitor! But be a horseman first. There is always someone watching who sees you as a role model.
7. Supporting your fellow competitors and engaging with people will enrich your show life.
8. Know the rules of competition! Make sure your attire and tack is legal. Read the rule book, ask questions and be well prepared.
9. Have FUN, don’t sweat the small stuff!

~Julia Keil Quibell~

01/24/2024

ISO beginner lesson horse for my program! 
Criteria: - 15 to 16hh
-Able to do English and
Western
-some kind of show
Experience a plus!
. - stock type only
- located within 4-5 hours
Driving distance of St. Louis


Please message me if you know of one ! Horse friends please share !

11/28/2023

Lots of good tips !

Yesterday we wrapped up warm and headed off to the Equestrian Management Agency British Dressage National Convention at Addington Equestrian. It was a good day with lots of insights, great to see so many talented and well trained horses. And a lovely bonus to see the wonderful Valegro.
Here are a some of my initial notes from the day...

Charlotte Dujardin - working with four year olds.

✅️ When training a young horse you are putting in the foundations for the future. ✅️ When looking at a young horse you need to value good confirmation not flashy movement. Buy a good walk and canter, train a trot. Look for natural paces that are in balance. You can then develope the trot. Once you train in suspension to an average trot it will look spectacular.
✅️ Big horses take more time to develope, smaller horses tend to be stronger.
✅️ The key is to find a horse who can easily sit and push. These are the qualities you need to make Grand Prix. If you buy a hind leg that naturally pushes the horse uphill you are half way there, confirmation can make training easier.
✅️ Some horses by nature are good in the contact. It's easier to have a strong horse who you make lighter than one that doesn't go into the bridle to take the rein. Tricky contacts take time to develope.
✅️ In the walk you want to see the head drop and neck swing infront of saddle. Take your hand down and forward in the walk and don't interfere at this age. Make sure not to over collect too early as you could lose the walk rhythm. Hacking improves the walk, do hill work.
✅️ Four year olds should work no longer than 20 minutes at the most.
✅️ Trot walk trot transitions.. train a small trot then go down to the walk. This values good balance and urges horses to step forwards to walk. Use half transitions within the pace, almost to the walk then ride forward again in the trot.
✅️ Do rising trot on young horses, don't sit on them too soon, not strong enough.
✅️ Don't go too deep into corners with young horse, they will lose balance.
✅️ Within leg yield you should only have a small flexion, not a bend. Leg yield increases inside leg to outside rein connection.
Ride leg yield on a diagonal line, this exercise encourages horse to stay upright and balanced rather than falling over outside shoulder. Make sure you look up on the turn.
✅️ Young horses have their whole life to collect, its a working trot, allow it forwards.
✅️ Use your voice with Young horses.

Laura Tomlinson- working with five year olds.

☑️ Don't do flying changes till simple change is good.
☑️ Don't do half pass till shoulder in both ways is good and the horse has equal suppleness.
☑️ Make a habit of riding the basics every single time you ride. It gives a better feeling later on if horses have been taught to be supple over the back.
☑️ Transitions are there to focus a young horse and put their body in the right place.
Open hand as you come down to trot.
☑️ If the hand stays on too long in the downward transition it has a negative impact on hingleg.
☑️ Slow the rising if the trot gets too speedy.
☑️ When going from stretch to picking up the reins the trot rhythm needs to stay the same.
☑️ Pat on the side that there is something scary.
☑️ The more obvious we ask a question of our horse, the easier it is for them to give us the right answer.
☑️ With young horses never push them above their limits. Adapt the plan to how they are feeling rather than doing 'X' amount every day. This will develope confidence in their ability.
☑️ Create expression through athleticism, not pressure.

Maria Colliander- Judge
✔️ She was working with a horse didn't have so much steam for canter work, so she started with the canter work.
✔️ Judges are looking for precision. Your judging position in the arena will affect the view of the movement and therefore the comment/mark.
✔️ Show your horse off on the short sides.

Gareth Hughes Dressage - advanced
✅️ Atmosphere can create nerves and tension within the horses, this is not something we can practise at home...if there is a particular trigger (i.e a spooky end of the arena) start working the horse away from where they are spooking. Start by getting them focused on you then the relaxation should come.
✅️ When warming up it is our chance to see how the horse is feeling that day. This will dictate what our session is made up of. Might just be working on balance /shaping the horse/suppleness /getting horse on the aids through exercises.
✅️ Some horses find their canter through transitions, some find it through shapes.
Easy ways to get horses through their middle is spiralling circle in and out.
The shape will collect them and then you must ride forward within the shape. The shape makes the horse fall in and out, which then makes the rider shape the horses body with the inside leg and they start to pick up round their middle.
✅️ Simple changes, be proactive but be patient. Wait in the walk. He would rather see a few jog steps down to walk but the walk then becomes fluent and forwards than a horse doing an upbrupt downwards transition and a very tense walk.
✅️ In collected canter think front legs slower, hind legs quicker.
✅️ You need to be able to see and feel test lines. Practise lines, break it up into pieces to practise.
✅️ Steepness of a half pass line is dictated by the ease of canter on the line.
We need to care about how and where we start, not where we finish when teaching the half pass. In between the lines always playing with on and back transitions as the quality of canter is the foundation of the movement. Once the training line is easy then focus on the destination and ride marker to marker.
✅️ Consistent canter = consistent line = consistent bend.
✅️ Training lines improves quality of the movement. Can't ride test lines everyday, it doesn't build confidence as it's very hard. You must build the confidence in the horses ability and adjustability within the lines to then achieve good test lines.
✅️ A good walk can often feel like free marks! We usually ride our best walk at the end of a test!! Mainly because we have relaxed...
✅️ in advanced work the extended walk is the biggest and most forward walk. It's an impression of a contact, don't over hold the contact. Ears need to be the height of the wither. Thinking of pushing the shoulders away from you creates ground cover in the walk.
✅️ Medium walk, you want the same walk with a shorter contact and hands forward. Still ride shoulders and hands away from you. Medium walk should feel like you need to shorten your reins to trot.
✅️ Collected walk, shorter rein. This is where you want to start to thinking about riding hind leg forward. If you do this in medium and extended walk it rushes the walk. If collected walk gets tense, create slight shoulder in on curve.
✅️ Ride lateral work to improve horses acceptance of the leg.
✅️ Mistakes are part of learning, its about having a system and going back to it.
✅️ There is a fine line between guiding and holding with the contact. When doing shoulder in and the horse stops following the line, do a 10m circle. The circle puts the horse back on the line and following the aids. The inside leg is a controlling aid. The 10m circle reminds horse how to react to the inside leg. As the horse relaxes into the movement it looks more quality and supple and the athleticism increases.
✅️ When you feel as a rider you are doing too much walk. You shouldn't be doing it for them. Re group and then go again.
✅️ Riding with a whip, it is an aid to ask the horse to try harder in what they are doing. Don't rely on it to make the horse go, its a listen aid.
✅️ Add half pass within a good trot, don't half pass hoping to keep a good trot.
✅️ Rein back is not natural. Difficult to teach some horses. Easiest way to start a rein back is to flex one way and ask horse to step back/slighly sideways. Horses rein back straight when comfortable to go back Allow the horse to learn about going back, then ask it to be straight.
✅️ When you feel tension it's easy to start panicking. You must trust the training system. Just waiting for them to calm down is using tiredness for focus. Giving them a job gives by doing an exercise gives them confidence in you. Create a habit of using movements for focus the horse and this will translate into test riding.
Knowledge gives you confidence.
✅️ Exercise- 20 m circle with 10m circle every time you cross the centre line. Then add travers to 10m circle (huge pirouette). Throughout this exercise looking for the confidence in the canter. If the canter is good reduce the circle to 8m, then with travers on the circle. This helps create a quality canter, bend round inside leg and adjustability. It gives the horse confidence in the movement and they learn to see the line in and out of the pirouette. The shape gives guidance on how to hold the canter and shape around your inside leg which will then create consistency in the pirouettes.
The horse must not turn small just because you go travers!
✅️ Tempi changes, wait for the good canter, you might ride 4 strides inbetween or 400 strides! If canter good can push through the tempis.

P.s thank for the 📸 and a great day Charlotte Fogel Judy Fw

11/22/2023

- If your torso is collapsing to the right, your hips slipped to the left
- If your right leg keeps creeping up, or you lose just the right stirrup, your hips have slipped left
- If you find it easier to ride to the left, than to the right, your hips likely slip to the left.
- if you find yourself clinging to the right rein, while practically forgetting that you have a left one, good chances are that your hips slept left
- If your left hand is higher than your right hand, it’s possible that your hip slipped to the left
- If cantering counter clockwise, feels okay, but cantering clockwise feels awful, I’m gonna say your hips slipped left.
- if you can leg yield your horse to the right (off your left leg) pretty well,  but cannot lead guild to the left to save your life, your hips are probably chronically slipping to the left.

So many times, when a rider or is collapsing to the right, their coach tells them to fix it by stepping into the left stirrup. 🤦‍♀️ Like, I’ve heard of very famous coaches, giving this instruction.
And the thing is, it does look a little better, because at least when they step into the left stirrup, it gets them to straighten up their entire body -the problem is they are still off-center.
 I think the coach then typically gives students other exercises that bring them back over to the right (like twisting the shoulders to point a little to the left would help), but what I can tell you is these students then talk to me about their ride and they have absolutely no idea how to reproduce whatever straightness they may have accomplished during that clinic. 

The number one, needs solved now, issue in the rider in this sketch is that the hips fell left. I don’t care that the rib cage is collapsing to the right, or that the right leg is creeping way up. All of that will be fixed once the Rider brings their pelvis back to center.

This person is also riding with the left hip forward and the right hip back, but that will also likely resolve once you get this person to scooch over to the right.

 I would tell this student to put their left butt cheek in the middle of the saddle, high centering it, and drop the right butt cheek down into the hole that creates.

Another great exercise (on a trotting horse) is to drop the left stirrup, go clockwise, and posting trot utilizing just the right stirrup. This will feel horrible at first- to the point that I often have to let students try the exercise the opposite direction with the opposite stirrup so they realize how easy it is on their “strong” side. 

If you really struggle to keep from slipping left, it can also help to turn your chest to point a little bit to the left (while traveling right). This can be very effective at putting your weight into your right leg. You can stand up, assume a position similar to riding, and then twist your torso, one way, and then the other. Not all, but definitely most people find that when they twist to the left, it shifts weight into the right foot and vice versa.

Btw- I do virtual video review lessons! Very little tech knowledge needed. $65/lesson.


11/05/2023

Great Barn Halloween party last night ! Creative costumes for both the horses and the kids ! Thank you to everyone that came !

08/31/2023

I ride with my head and eyes up. Far from an affectation, it is a fundamental part of my equitation. Here’s why.

At first, to be honest, it was to win in the show ring. I grew up and rode in an era of great stock seat and hunt seat eq riders. Anyone who was looking down was going to be shown the out gate, period. It was reason enough for me, back then.

My dressage teacher further hammered the whys of my own head carriage home to me. Where I looked not only steered my horse, it made his posture echo my own. In fact, on voltes and circles, I was often instructed to look over the horse’s outside ear to keep his shoulders up and to have him more effectively ‘onto’ my outside rein. It was magic… and all without pushing or pulling him into position.

Anyone who doubts this is encouraged to find a willing partner who will allow them to be straddled, while on hands and legs! Slowly turn your head from left to right, looking as you go. Your partner underneath will clearly feel the rotation of your seat, your entire pelvis when you do so. So will your horse.

If we carry ourselves with pride and expression, our horses will be inspired to follow suit.

I would wager that most of us, when in the position of riding straight up the centre line before the halt and salute, have our eyes upon the judge in the box. If not, we greatly risk veering off course, for we ride where we look. If we value going forward, our eyes and hearts can greatly help in getting us there!

Nor is the jumper rider going to last very long, looking down at her horse’s neck. There’s nothing like precision riding, at speed, to snap one out of a bad habit. LOOK UP, OR PERISH might be the tee shirt there.

Nobody drives carriage horses while looking down, for the risks of doing so are exactly as they would be, should one drive down the freeway, looking at the horn cap on the steering wheel, or at our phones. Hmmm… bad comparison, for people seemingly do that, anyway.

When I married, my riding changed drastically. No longer being judged, I was riding with my new family on the ranch. Long hours, hard and fast, over big country. Trust me, you looked up to see what was coming your way, whether it was an icy patch, or a badger hole. The rider who looked down was soon on the ground and often, it was because we weren’t on the steadiest horses in the world.

Ranch horses are made by getting out there and ranching, not by riding circles on groomed ground. And so, we rode, our eyes scanning the world around us, counting cows and not the hairs in our horses’ manes.

I have continued to ride with my eyes up—and usually, a smile on my face—because I still ride green horses out in nature. Having my eyes up gives me that split second to see what is going to be concerning my c**t, at the same time or God willing, even a little bit sooner than he does. It gives me a fighting chance. The smile comes because I can’t help it. Besides, smiling makes everyone feel better, not just me.

It was while listening to a podcast that the reasons—the actual science of why—we should look up were explained to me.

Sara Fleming—personal trainer, strength and weightlifting coach, biochemist, medical researcher and author of ‘Fitness Without Fear’—explained the physiological processes of how and why we want to use our bodies in certain ways. As she explained the correct alignment of the human body, both in motion and at rest, I stopped what I was doing and paid close attention.

“Why look up?” she asked.

“Our bodies are in balance, in vertical alignment, when the ear opening is directly over top the shoulder. For every one inch that we deviate, or move, our ear ahead of (or behind) the shoulder, our head virtually increases another ten pounds in weight!” This misalignment causes fatigue and this causes stress and incomplete, or shallow, breathing. This stress leads to tension, which cannot be helped, because we are no longer fundamentally in balance.

“Tension not only causes inflammation and breakdown, over time, but it is the root cause of stiffness…” I didn’t hear much else because as a rider, I know that stiffness is the enemy of ‘feel’ and relaxation. From the top down, the horse literally is trying to relax with a person on board who is riding out of balance.

I realize that so many of the great riders are shown in historic photos and today’s performance videos, staring at the backs of their horses’ heads. As an empath, that, too, is reason enough for me to go large with ‘soft eyes’, to use Sally Swift’s famous term. I can never relax or keep my mind on my work, while I’m feeling someone’s eyes boring into me from behind. The same must surely hold true for our horses?

I’ve been told that if we don’t look down, we miss a lot of what’s going on with our horses’ bend. A quick glance of the eyes, without moving our entire noggins, is enough. The less we stare at our horses’ front ends, the more we are aware of and feeling what’s going on underneath and coming from behind.

Here's the thing. While most of us know that we are to look up, as a teacher, judge and competitor, I know that the vast majority of riders school their horses without ever raising their eyes from the backs of their horses' heads. It is the single hardest postural change to correct in our horsemanship.

I am reminded that I must ride by the rules of old tradition and new science, before I can feel free to break them.

Just remember this. Not all the greats look down! To believe this is kidding ourselves. Podhajsky and Watjen looked up. Steinkraus and both Klimkes look(ed) up… and for a rider of my calibre, those are big enough guns for me.

📷 Cattle Cait - Cait Bascom.

08/26/2023

EC TV - How to Band a Horse's Mane

Due to popular request for a banding video, we've brought back our 2021 EC TV video, How to Band a Horse's Mane with professional ba**er, Cameron Van Sickle!

It's on our website and on our EC TV video channel, and you can access the excellent how-to video here: http://www.equinechronicle.com/ec-tv-how-to-band-a-horses-mane-2/

08/16/2023

06/06/2023

This work is not for everyone

It is for those driven enough to do whatever it takes to learn,
But willing to relax and wait for things to come.

It is for those who are tough enough to persevere long enough to get what they want
But soft enough to let go and relinquish control

It’s for people with enough grit to get through the hot days, the cold days, and the bad days
But enough sensitivity to know when to take a break, stand in the shade, or warm up under cover.

It is for people who desire greatness and aspire to reach the top
But see the value in the mundane, day to day interactions, and perfecting the basics

It is, above all, for those who’s fondest desire is to develop the horse to their potential and create a sense of serenity in everything they do.

04/17/2023

Summer camp dates ! Please message me if interested !

03/22/2023

6 year old bay mare, 14.3 h, incredibly well bred, has been shown extensively in competitive open show circuit and Missouri ranch shows in horsemanship, showmanship, trail, ranch trail and ranchmanship and has a green lead change. Very sweet and kind, loves people. Hauls well, easy to clip, bathe. Selling due to owner downsizing. Located outside St Louis. MO. Priced in the low xx,###. Please message for more info, price and more video!

03/01/2023

I have a stall open for training or boarding. Please message me for details!

09/06/2022

Feeding and watering horses 3 evenings a week and occasionally on the weekends , turning horses out, sweeping. Experience with horses required

08/12/2022

Very interesting read on bandaging

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.