Love Riding But Hate Sweating? 

Take wearing your protective riding vest for instance. Ugh.. If you’re like most people you don't even want to put it on, even if it's cold out!  

You start thinking, "chest trauma can't be all that bad, right?"  Sweating sure has a bad reputation:  no one likes to be wet, sticky and smelly.

But sweating is actually a good thing!  It is critically important in regulating body temperature and is the main way your body keeps cool during exercise.  In fact, it makes humans able to endure and perform under conditions that stop a lot of other animals.  Did you ever try and run with your dog on a hot day? At some point a dog will sit down and refuse to move until it cools off, which it does primarily by panting.

When you sweat, liquid changes to a gas using your body heat to power the process of evaporation. Sweating cools you really well, especially when it’s not too humid.  And that’s a good thing, because exercise can raise your core temperature from a normal of 98-99 to 104! A temp higher than this and technically you have heatstroke, and that’s dangerous.  Symptoms include headaches, dizziness, confusion and collapse. It can even be deadly, so it’s really important that your body stay cool.

So while sweating is a good thing, being soaked in it isn’t.  Bacteria love love love sweat, and body odor is a sure sign that they are having a party in it. Being wet and stinky is bad enough, but sweat causes rashes, rubs and skin breakdown leading to bacterial and fungal infections.  Also, over-wet skin cannot properly do its job as a protective barrier, and you will very easily absorb anything on your skin.  That’s bad news if you’ve tried to clean your protective riding vest with disinfecting sprays for instance.

Our horses sweat too.  As prey animals, they are all about comfort and safety. They don’t like to be hot, sweaty and stinky either. Like us though, they depend mostly on sweating to cool themselves during exertion, and saddles, saddle pads and boots make them hot. Also, in areas of excessive sweat accumulation and wetness, (like under saddle pads and boots) they are also at risk for rubs, infections and toxic exposures.

Same horse, different day, similar riding conditions.

At 224 Equestrian our products are carefully engineered to provide maximum utility and constructed with the highest grade materials to bring you a final product that works. They create air flow where there was none, minimizing heat and sweat buildup between gear and body, thus allowing for rapid cooling and wetness reduction. You sweat, but you don't get soaked in it.  You and your horse stay cooler in the heat and warmer in the cold, and can focus on the task at hand:
RIDING!

Stay Cool. Stay Dry. ENJOY.THE.RIDE.