What are your thoughts on when someone should use sport boots on your horse. I have an 18 year old that I know was used for team sorting/penning,mounted shooting and Im guessing various ranch work. I use him now simply for pleasure and much lighter riding. I only get to ride him a couple hours a day and its pretty much just arena work...walk trot etc. I am an advanced beginner and I dont use him hard. He is in good shape and isnt displaying any discomfort or problems. I guess my only concern is since he is getting older I want to make sure he stays comfortable and doesnt develope any problems. With his age should boots be used as a preventative or do you wait until you see signs of needing them and what type of signs would I see?

Is older age a question on when to start using support?
That is a good question.

First, I think that leg protection is best used on groomed surfaces, like arenas and race tracks, but more questionable in trails/pasture riding, although I have used them there also a few times.
That is because it is hard to keep all kinds of stuff from getting hung on them or slide inside them, plus used long term, some of them may overheat the legs, since horses ridden outside are generally ridden for longer periods than training in a ring.

I see you are talking about arena riding.
What do you think the boots prevent, that it may be adequate for an older horse?

If you are looking for support, boots really don't support leg structures that much in a normal, healthy horse, if at all.
Leg structures, ligaments and tendons, under the torque of moving that weight around, will stretch beyond what we can support with today's "sport boots".

I understood that any kind of protection we can offer is to keep possible hits to the legs from the other legs or other objects, like poles in jumping, in training for trail obstacles, or run down bandages for race horses that burn at the track or reining horses in the long slides.

We used to tack all horses in training, young and old and, if we were to ride them indoors, or jumping in the outdoor courses, we would add a thin felt pad and bandage it on the front legs with cotton wraps.

Those, that today are made commercially and of all materials, were understood to be used to keep a young, uncoordinated horse from possible hitting one leg with the other, as they learned to manage their bodies in the exercises we asked of them, longing and training in general.
Also, riding over poles, a horse will still feel it if it knocks them, but it won't be very painful.

I think that is the kind of protection we are looking for when we use such as "sport boots".

There may be also use in special conditions, like a horse with suspensory problems, that needs extra support, that his own body is not good at providing any more.
Then you do get some support, when his own is not adequate any more.

So, will leg protection for training a horse help your older horse?
Yes, in the right conditions, it will help if he were to hit a leg.
For support if he hyperflexes a leg, that would be questionable.

I think that protecting a horse's leg is a great idea any time we are going to be doing something that will require that horse to move quickly or be where it may hit something with them.
Most competition horses wear them just because of that.

For easy riding around, if your horse is sound, I doubt that they would do much for him.
I would ask your veterinarian about it, he knows your horse and if adding support would be helpful.

The boots are a good idea but I'd think if there were going to be problems they would have shown up by now except for arthritis. I'd probably be more concerned about that and be feeding a joint suppliment of some kind as a preventive measure.

Paul