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To subscribe or learn more about The Horse's Hoof, click here. This new issue contains an update on Granite Chief, and how he's been doing competing barefoot (and using Easyboots) in endurance for three full ride seasons now.
There is also an article on the Houston Mounted Police Department. Here are a few more photos of them.
Photo here is of one of Zeno's hooves.
If you are having some issues or problems with your EasyCare hoof boots (that would include the entire Easyboot line: original Easyboots, Epics, Bares, Grips or Custom; Old Mac's original or G2, Boa Horse Boots, or EasySoakers) - fill out this form and submit it. You can even attach photos. If the form doesn't work for you, you can email (or call) customer service.
Another way to participate in providing feedback is to apply for a spot on Team Easyboot. Applications are here, and more information on what we are looking for can be found here. We have received close to 100 applications so far and will start the selection process in a couple of weeks.
Researchers at Michigan State University researched the effects of
offering salt water to horses following an 18 or 28-mile endurance
test. For the first minutes following exercise, horses were offered
plain water or salt water. The scientists discovered that the horses
that consumed salt
water actually had improved recovery of sweat fluid losses because they
were more likely to drink later. When horses drank the salt water, the
blood concentrations of salt remained elevated and thus horses were
more willing to drink again. Horses that drank plain water did not
drink again following the first swallows despite being partially
dehydrated because the water had diluted the blood and
effectively switched off the thirst response.
Click here to read the entire article. I have an electrolyte comparison page that shows most of the major brands and how they compare to each other.
Here is another link to an article I previously posted about electrolyte supplementation. btw- I still don't electrolyte my horses via syringe on rides. I picked up some samples of Platinum Performance electrolyte at Tevis this year and have been giving those to Tigger in his feed - he actually eats it! Usually I just add a little salt into the horses food when they are competing in rides, and I think that works best since they all eat and drink extremely well.
Here are a couple of photos our most recent testing ride - the first is a Chief-cam shot of the trail we are about to ride down. We did a lot of hillwork and got the horses good and sweaty - especially Tigger who isn't in as good of shape for that kind of work as Chief. We were trying out some new things - new Easyboot Gaiters, and also the new Easyboot Edge. Chief (grey horse) had a couple of kinds of new gaiters on and both worked well - no rubbing as you can see in the photo. The other photo is of Dave bending down to check out the Edge boots on Tigger. So far I've had them on three of my horses. I think they are going to be quite nice, I can't wait to start using them in some endurance rides!
These photos were taken last Saturday at the Stagecoach endurance ride. Tigger and I had a great day and he finished up his first ride season with 405 miles. I rode just over 2,000 miles this year.
Chief didn't get to go because I had promised him two months off between ride seasons - and of course that was when there were no rides, they had all been cancelled! This ride was thrown together at the last minute. I still chose to stick to my original plan so just went out for at least one day to support the ride. It was good for Tig to go, he still has a LOT to learn! I am still enjoying getting to ride Chief on pleasure rides, and plan to take him to Death Valley. We've been testing new hoof boots, I've got some photos from riding today to post later. Tig was testing some new things at Stagecoach too, with good results. He is a good tester since he seems to clod his way through rocks. He's a bit tougher on things than Chief is!
Here are a couple of photos from a customer who put boot studs on her Easyboot Grips to get more traction while riding in mud.
It's getting to be that time of year - where the trails get mushy and wet! I find my horses slip less with boots on than they do barefoot, so usually use boots on them when we are going to be going up and down hills in mud or snow. Tigger is going to need a lot of work over the winter in these conditions, he wasn't very graceful in the mud this year at Fort Schellbourne. I always hate to ride inexperienced horses in slippery stuff. I feel really confident on Chief, because I know that even when he slips, he tends to at least stay upright, even if we do some skating around.
I often hear from riders that their horses slip more in mud because of the boots. Well - that may be the case for some boots, and some horses, and some mud. (there are so many variables when it comes to horses) I really think that in some conditions horses will slip no matter what is on their hooves. I also think that experience has a lot to do with it too - some of the riders blaming boots for their horses slipping have not ridden their horses in mud before. Some mud is so slick that it is going to cause slipping no matter what but it is a big difference to be on a horse that has done it a few times, versus one that hasn't. No matter what conditions you ride in, be careful out there! One nice thing about boots and boots with studs in them is that you can take them on or off when needed. Keep a pair of boots with studs for those really muddy or slick days, and another pair or set for the dryer less slick footing times.
I need to order a couple of ID tags for Tigger.
I like to braid these metal ID tags into the horses manes.
I also put these tags on their halters and other tack. Over the years I've used a lot of different kinds, plastic, brass, metal. These are the best I have found so far. They are strong and durable, and over time the engraving doesn't disappear.
I got these from Pet Tags Online, $3.49 each.
If your horse happens to get loose if you are traveling or camping (or at an endurance ride), these are a great way to provide identification - especially if they manage to slip out of a halter.
I've been really happy with how the current Easyboots have been working on my horses this year, especially at the last few endurance rides I've done. Tigger just did 50 miles last weekend with four Epics - two with existing gaiters and two with a pair of trial gaiters. They all did super well, and didn't cause any problems - here is a photo of one of his pasterns that I took after finishing. No rubbing anywhere, which is great. The new gaiters were also super easy to get on in the morning, in freezing cold temps -- even on a horse that is not the most cooperative about having his feet handled. He is getting better and I got all four boots on him fast enough to warm up inside the trailer and avoid getting frozen hands and feet.
Lots of new stuff is in the works at EasyCare. Check out the latest on some of the new gaiter designs in Garrett's blog. Stay tuned for more info on upcoming hoof boot developments. My horses can hardly wait!
Here is a link to "The Damaging Effects of Shoeing", written by Dr. Tomas Teskey.
Lots of horses have done great with shoes in various disciplines, and lots of horses are doing fantastic without shoes - this is no doubt a controversial topic! I have ridden thousands of miles on horses that were shod (and with Easyboots), and thousands of miles on horses that were barefoot, or barefoot and booted. Now that I've done it both ways in competition, I definitely have a preference for keeping my horses barefoot, and using EasyCare hoofboots when needed. I believe that I owe it to my horses to protect them when I am competing on them in endurance rides - it's not worth the risk to have them come up footsore or have to hurt so adding protection is just something that I feel a responsibility towards them for. Their longevity is my first priority! I know they could compete in some endurance rides barefoot but I am too conservative to risk having them sore either during the ride, or the next day. My horses have earned 21 thousand mile AERC medallions so far. Three of my horses have over 6,000 miles each (two have over 7,000 each) - and all wearing Easyboots, of course. I think there may be something to that. Besides just luck. :)
It's not likely that you'll ever see one of my horses with shoes nailed on, ever again. It would take a severe head injury or some sort of major brain cell meltdown for me to do that. So while I do think that shoes might be the best choice for some riders and horses, I don't believe that they will ever be something that I would choose again for any of my horses.
I hope that everybody can find what is best for their horses, and do it.
Click here to read the entire list of 10 Golden Lessons. I thought of this (having read it awhile back) the other morning when I couldn't wait to get out of bed. I don't need an alarm, that is for sure! ;)
Steve Jobs said: “The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”
I’ve got it down to four words: “Do what you love.” Seek out an occupation that gives you a sense of meaning, direction and satisfaction in life. Having a sense of purpose and striving towards goals gives life meaning, direction and satisfaction. It not only contributes to health and longevity, but also makes you feel better in difficult times. Do you jump out of bed on Monday mornings and look forward to the work week? If the answer is ‘no’ keep looking, you’ll know when you find it.
Be sure to watch the entire thing!
Click here to view the monthly archives of my blog posts. If you are looking to find help or additional information on a particular topic, you can also search by category. I'll try and get more topics organized a bit better so that they are easier to find, like this one on Easyboot and Easyboot Epic tips. If you need help with something relating to hoof boots, you can also email me, or post a comment in my blog.
Check out this review (or watch the video below) of Chef's 5 minute meals! You heat and eat a hot meal, in five minutes - without the need for a stove or microwave. Pretty cool for endurance rides (or camping, etc.) when it's cold and/or you don't want to have to cook!
Here are a couple of photos of the water troughs this morning - the blue bucket was Tigger's water. I had to break ice on it last night before we went to bed. Overnight it got into the single digits. Fortunately, he had a nice warm blanket to keep him warm and was good when I went to put his boots on this morning before the ride start. 
I rode him with four Epics and dome shaped comfort pads and he did great in them. He does really well in the boots, and on a ride with this many rocks I was glad to have the pads in for him. He is now wearing 2's on his fronts and they are a super snug fit. You can see in below photos how his pasterns looked at the finish, and the inside of the boots--no rubbing, no sand or dirt in the boots, and I didn't use vetwrap or plumbers putty, the boots just fit so close that everything works! I also used these boots at High Desert (same pads also). We had a nice ride today, it was definitely cold a the start but was a nice sunny day and I was comfortable (yay for polarfleece!). Tig did well with all of the stuff on the trail - we crossed the highway (50 and 95) four times, plus went past a tire graveyard, and lots of other stuff that never phased him a bit. He had a great first ride season--next ride: Death Valley! 
Looks like Tigger will get to do a 50 on Saturday. I have to admit that I'm not particularly looking forward to doing this ride. It's three days/155 miles -- I'm just going to go out and do one of the days. Fortunately it is a close ride, only about 60 miles from my house. I think the reasons why I'm not really excited about it (like I am for other rides) is because 1) I'm not very fond of the trail and riding alongside highway 50 in a 65 mph zone (been there, done that), and 2) because I'm not going to be riding Chief, ;) and 3) because I have been gone a lot and really want to have some time to spend at home for a change.
I promised Chief that he would get a couple of months off between the ride seasons, after he did 5 days at Grand Canyon. I like to let the horses have breaks after they have a big ride season, and Chief did do 1370 miles in 2007. It will be good for Tigger to get to do this ride for conditioning purposes. He has been really coming along well and I am really happy with how well he has progressed this year. And, I did get to ride Chief yesterday so it's all good. We had fun trying out some of the new boots that EasyCare is working on.
Lots of gibberish and gobblygook has been posted about beet pulp on the internet over the years. I have fed it to my own horses for years and years. I used it when I got Tigger to help plump him up. It got him eating well, and it did the trick - he gained weight, got a beautiful healthy coat, much improved hoof quality, and became a nice little athletic endurance horse. Do I think that the BP was the reason? Well...no....it was a combination of things...though if you were to read this article that was recently posted on ridecamp you might be led to believe that BP is very bad for horses.
Okay, so now for the fun part. Below is the response from a veterinarian who really does know her stuff, especially about equine nutrition - as she answers an inquiry about the validity of the article in the provided link. Use this as a lesson to not accept everything you read as gospel, especially when it comes to horses, and the internet. Horse owners, and endurance riders especially (who me?) love to find things to blame things on, anytime something goes wrong with their horses. It can't possibly be human error, so we have to find something to blame, and resolve us of having any responsibility.
My advice about beet pulp (not that my advice is worth anything, but I have lots of experience with the stuff) -- if you are worried about it being a problem for your horse, don't feed it. If you feed it and it doesn't cause a problem, keep feeding it. Like I do. I don't make it a huge part of my horses diets, but it is handy for helping put weight on a thin horse, and it's also great for keeping weight on a horse that is competing regularly and isn't the best eater. Fortunately, I have "easy keepers", so don't need to feed a lot of beet pulp or additional feeds. Tigger now is even keeping his weight well with just an all hay diet.
Here is a comment from an endurance rider who just recently attended a Pete Ramey clinic. I learned with my own horses, especially Rocky -- that using comfort pads in his boots (I like the Dome shaped pads the best) did more for improving his hoof quality and speeding his transition to barefoot than riding him barefoot or having him turned out on hard rocky ground for well over a year. I wish I had figured it out sooner. Posting this because I think it could potentially help some horses out there.
An important point I got from the clinic is to use my boots more. I have really
only been using the boots for competitions and going barefoot the rest of the
time at home and on training rides. I did notice that sometimes my horse seemed
to be a little foot sore and a little short strided but I just kind of put it
aside thinking it was better to "toughen" up her feet and I would never get her
hoofs hard and develop thicker soles by using boots.
I found out I was
wrong. What would happen is that my horse would start to walk toe first. Not
super obvious but I could tell. Pete implies that as soon as your horse starts
walking toe first you start going backward in hoof development. He said I would
actually develop a stronger, tougher, better developed hoof using boots and
having a properly loaded hoof with a properly working hoof mechanism then
gimping along barefoot..
So, that's the main thing I am going to do...to
use boots more around home. Also you have to use the foam pads. That I did
already and I think they are great.
Lauren
Click here for a photo album. There are photos from several cities in China including Beijing, Xian, Guilin, Zhujiang, Yangshou, Guangzhou, and also Hong Kong - we had a great time seeing so many wonderful things! The culture and history of China is amazing, and it was a good experience for us. If anybody wants to know what any of the photos are from, just let me know. We got to see so many things, it's hard t
o label them all
. 
We got a lot done today - the leaves are all cleaned up, lawns mowed, horses and dogs exercised, 12 hooves trimmed, all the horses wormed, the house is clean. I also got my office straightened up and organized. Lots to catch up on after being gone for almost two weeks! I took a few photos today too. Here are a couple of Chief, and one of his front hooves. He has been barefoot most of his life, and is very active. The neighbors have all said that my horses ran around a LOT while I was gone. They were all (four of 'em) turned out together and I know that helps to keep them moving around. Chief is the group leader and tends to herd the others. They all get along really well together, tho I do have to admit it was a relief to come home and find all four horses in perfect shape. We have never left them for that long before! Rocky's and Tigger's feet both look really good right now too. The only horse left to trim will be Zenos, and we should get to him tomorrow. Tig still needs more work with his feet, he doesn't like having them picked up and wants it back on his terms. He is getting better, but annoying when he wrenches your back out. He's a brat compared to my other horses, who are all so easy about their feet. 
This photo shows Dave trotting Chief out after his trim. The next photo shows why I hate vinyl fence. If you ever put in a horse fence, don't do vinyl. It may sound great, and looks great, but it just isn't very practical for containing large aninmals. Especially if you are in a cold climate. When my horses roll if one of their hooves comes in contact with a rail or a post and it's freezing out, it just splinters and shatters all over the place. Besides that, if they lean or push on it (trying to get to the hay, as shown in one of these photos) the stuff will snap and crack. Next fencing is going to be metal pipe. Last one before the vinyl was wood, and it was too high maintenance. Zenos is the main culprit for all of the fence damage. Even when we had the hotwire hot, he didn't respect it. 
Web Worker Daily has this great post about how to tune your computer up for free!
You know the routine. That computer you bought two years ago was a speed demon and never encountered problems. Now, it’s slow as molasses and ties you up in bizarre, inexplicable routines for which you have no idea what the cause is. You need a tune-up, pal. In this post, I’ll round up some simple steps that Windows users can take and a bunch of free downloads you can get that will turn that computer back into a speed demon in less than an hour. I’ll follow up with a post for Mac users....click here to read more!
The ride season isn't over yet! Current standings can be found here. Riders have ridden more than 18,000 miles in the contest this year. That number would have no doubt been higher if not for the EI outbreak in Australia this year. I'm sure the riders there are suffering bad withdrawals from not being able to ride. They have my sympathy.
EasyCare is accepting applications for next years contest. Entry forms can be found here. The rules for 2008 are here, and I will also post them below.
Continue reading "EasyCare Hoof Boot Contest 2008 and 2007 Update " »
Somebody from work sent this to me. This is how a lot of my friends (you guys reading this blog) keep up with me! Ha ha. One other way I keep up with my friends is to talk to them on my bluetooth headset (through cell phone) when I am riding. I did that today when I took Chief out on the trail, with Dave and the dogs. Boy was Chief full of himself, very bouncy and snorty and animated. He and the other horses all grew in thick winter coats while I was gone. They were also all very well fed, lol - though I am sure that having less exercise while I was gone also contributed. Chief needs to go on a serious diet.
Now is a great time to order your perfect (or nearly perfect) horse, or friends favorite equine friend a holiday surprise! There are lots of great ideas out there for gifts for equestrians and their best buddies.
Most horse owners I know would appreciate a gift of a pair or set of 4 hoof boots from EasyCare. Whether barefoot or shod, hoof boots provide excellent hoof protection to keep a horse comfortable and happy on their feet (err...hooves).
Check out the EasyCare line of hoof boots - there are currently several models to choose from:
Don't forget accessories that can be included such as EasyCare Comfort Pads, EZ Ride Stirrups, Sheepskin Seatcovers, Saddle Packs, Gear, Videos, and Natural Hoofcare items. You can purchase these items directly from EasyCare or click here to find a dealer near you. Online dealers are also listed, so be sure to check that as an option if you are unable to find any dealers in your immediate area.
