Saturday, October 16, 2010

Boots, finally!

What do you do if you want your horse barefoot but he doesn't have enough sole to stay comfortable? You buy boots! Unfortunately that's not as easy as it sounds.Especially when you've got a horse with a club foot.

You may remember me mentioning my Easyboot Gloves and liking them. Well... not so much. They just don't fit him. The last time I rode with them one of them came off twice. After the second time I was so exasperated I just snatched them both off and rode without. I got a fit kit (something I would have done in the first place if I'd known they existed) to see what size fits Gwen and discovered that the darn things don't fit either of my horses. Bummer.

So I looked around for a while. I perused the other Easyboot offerings but didn't really like them too much. I looked at the Renegades but found out from the website that they didn't stand a chance at fitting him. Then I found Cavallo Simple Boots on sale. I measured his feet and figured he'd need a size 2 so I went ahead and ordered them.

When I got them, sadly, I wasn't that happy. I knew they were the right size because they didn't swivel on his feet but they still had a little more play than I was comfortable with.On the plus side they didn't come off when I rode with them. I took another look at Cavallo's products and decided to try the Sport Boot. They fit a little narrower than the Simple Boots so I thought they would fit better on Coriander's funky feet.

Of course, I ordered the wrong size. When I discovered I needed to swap them I called the company just to make sure they would know what size to send me when they got my return. After waiting a couple weeks I finally got the boots again and found out the company had sent me the same size I ordered the first time!  ACK! Fortunately a call to customer service got the correct size sent to me quickly with return postage so I wouldn't have to pay shipping on the boots they sent me by mistake.

Phew, that was a bit of an ordeal! Fortunately his new boots seem to fit him really well, snug and without play. He seems to like them too.

Long story short: I've got a pair of size 0.5 Easyboot Gloves and a pair of size 2 Cavallo Simple Boots for sale. Both are lightly used and I can give you a good deal on them.Otherwise I'm popping them up on Ebay later this week.

4 comments:

  1. Granted he looks cute in everything ;)

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  2. I'm glad to hear you finally found a pair that fits and that you like. They are hard to deal with. We used the Soft Ride boots but they are mainly for therapy when someone has injured themselves yet again. I wouldn't recommend them for riding as they seem to come off pretty easily in the field. At least on my guys, even with the right fit. Hope someone is interested in your boots, they are expensive.

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  3. Yeah, I need these boots for trail riding so they need to be a bit heftier. They should sell on Ebay, I've seen people grabbing them up pretty quickly. I hope I can recoup at least 50% of what I spent.

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