The Great Thing About Fabric Though,

Most people in the horse world know what polo wraps are. Of course, just because something is functional doesn't mean that it can't also be FUN! The basic polos that you can buy on Dover Saddlery come in black, white, hunter and navy. Higher end ones seem to only be available in black and white. Thankfully, Polos are one of the easiest DIY projects you can find as far as horse items, since they're basically just a long strip of fleece with velcro on the end.

The only tricky part is cutting the fleece dead straight to make sure that you don't create any pressure points. Fleece is available in LOTS of fun colors and patterns! Now, I personally do not like tutorials that skip steps or assume that you understood something or will figure something out for yourself. So this may seem overly detailed to some, but if that's the case, then just skim over the parts that seem simple enough.

I'd also recommend that you read it all the way through before beginning to make sure you understand all of the steps and how they lead to each other. 1 yard of 2-inch wide industrial strength velcro - NOT the kind with the adhesive backing. It will gum up your sewing machine!

I don't particularly recommend sewing with a cat in the room as they're very good at getting in the way and not all that helpful. But if I shut Puzzle out of the room he stands there and paws at the door and cries the whole time, so he got to "help" me with this project.

He's sitting next to my personal favorite sewing scissors. They're easy to hold, fit my hand nicely, and keep their edge relatively well. I don't remember the brand, but they're pretty easy to spot at your local fabric store. Start out by laying the fabric out on the floor or large table or whatever cutting surface you prefer.

You're going to cut the fleece into five inch by nine foot strips. If you bought 3 yards of fleece, this would be the length of the fabric. I'm going to explain how I went about cutting it, but if you know how you want to do that, you can skip to the picture of four strips of fabric laying on the floor.

Fold the fabric in half lengthwise so that the selvages (those are the edges that the lady at the fabric store didn't cut) are matching. As you can see, the selvages are kind of ugly, especially on fleece. So you need to trim them off. Do this carefully so you don't end up with a jagged edge which could create uneven pressure on your horse's leg.

There, nice clean edges. You should now have four layers of fabric. Measure the fold all the way down the length of the fabric to make sure the strips will be perfectly straight, then pin in place. Cut along the edge, releasing the folded strips from the rest of the fabric.

Now cut along the fold, which will give you four separate strips. Separate the strips and lay them out. You can see here that I didn't get the selvage entirely off of all of mine. I don't care too much as you can't see it unless you're looking really close, but if you want them to look really professional, make sure you trim all of the icky off. At one end of each strip, fold the corners in to form a point. Repeat on each strip.

Stitch around the outside. Repeat on each strip, clip your threads and you're done! To roll them, put the velcro together and roll into it on the inside. This will ensure that the velcro will be on the outside when you put it on your horse's legs. These fit my 15.2hh paint mare almost perfectly. I made another pair for a friend who has a very leggy 15.2hh thoroughbred mare and they were just right for her as well.