The Ice Horse Evendura Wraps go from right below the knee to well below the ankle. Don’t mind my bulging bicep. Photo by Owie Samuels.
Let’s face it: eventers are obsessed with icing our horse’s legs. I’ve never seen such an array of ice boots and wraps and treatments as I do walking down the aisle on cross country day at a competition, and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be seeing the same scene at a venue for a different discipline. As such, we’re all looking for the perfect solution to our icing needs. We need something that is convenient, effective for cooling multiple parts of the leg, durable, logistically sensible and cost effective.
I’ve owned the Ice Horse Tendon Wraps for several years now and definitely gotten some good use out of them, so I was excited to get my hands on their new product, the Ice Horse Evendura Wraps. They’re similar to the Tendon Wraps, but with one major difference: they cover from lower knee to pastern, and this is what makes them unique.
The new extended length of the Evendura Wraps means you get more ice coverage during use, making them more useful for a greater variety of leg concerns. These wraps would be great for icing suspensory ligaments, deep digital flexor tendons, as well as general ankle issues. I have two pretty big-legged warmbloods, and I was pleased to find that they really did cover from right below the knee to right above the hoof on both of them.
You can apply the First Ice packs as I did, or you can apply the top two in a vertical position. Photo by Kate Samuels.
The patented First Ice packs that come with the Evendura Wraps are really easy to use, re-use and understand. Each wrap comes with four packs which all have two small strips of velcro on the back. The first time you use them, you lay them all face up in the freezer for at least six hours. When you pull them out, you gently massage the ice packs and they become malleable and feel like flaky ice, which means you can put them on your horse’s legs and they conform to the shape and size you need them to be. The ice packs easily velcro right to the compression wraps and stay put very well but are also easy to remove for re-freezing and cleaning. They stay cold for over two hours,and re-freeze quickly for re-use.
The wraps themselves are well thought out and I can tell you they are durable. They are made from the exact same soft cloth material as the Tendon Wraps, which I’ve owned for five years, and they look as good as new after all that time. The velcro hasn’t faded and the elastic hasn’t stretched. The wraps are easy to put on the leg snugly without tightening them too much and do a great job of holding the sometimes weighty ice in place. They’re also super easy to clean if for some reason you get them dirty. You can remove the ice packs and squirt them down, but I’ve also been known to throw mine in the washing machine.
The Evendura Wraps have inner velcro strips to insure that there is extra stability while your horse is being iced. Photo by Kate Samuels.
The Evendura Wraps boast an extra level of stability with two inner velcro straps. One is mid-way down the canon bone, and the other is a wide strap for the lower two ice packs. This insures that your wraps don’t slide down while they are on the leg, even if your horse moves a little. While it is inadvisable to leave the wraps on your horse totally unattended, I like that I can fit these on a leg and then go on about my business a little in the barn. I check in every few minutes, but I don’t have to give my horse the death stare like I do when he’s standing in ice buckets.
The wraps don’t just claim to cover everything from the lower knee to the pastern, they really do. After pulling the wraps off of Nyls even just for this photo shoot, I felt all over his legs, and I couldn’t feel a single spot that the ice packs had neglected. Now that he’s getting older and he’s been competing at the Advanced level for five years, I’m extra particular about what kind of ice therapy he gets on his legs, and it’s only the best. I was delighted to find that these wraps really did what they said they would, and sufficiently took care of his whole leg.
Ice Horse Evendura Wraps. Photo by Kate Samuels.
Another advantage to these boots is their affordability. Not only will they last you a long time, but they won’t break the bank upon initial purchase. You can purchase them online for $149.95 through the Ice Horse website, or through SmartPak. They also come in pony size for your pint-sized competitors who need quality ice therapy.
