EasyCare employees, Karen Chaton, Nancy Fredrick, Kay Davied and Mike Tilden attended the recent AERC Convention held in Reno, NV on Feb 29 thru March 1, 2008. Dave Rabe, 2007 Hoof Boot contest winner and Team Easyboot member was also a great help to us at our booth. This years' show was held at the Reno Events Center, with the speakers and special guests making several presentations at the Silver Legacy hotel.
The many vendors that were set up had a great selection of horse tack, saddles, clothing, feed and supplements, art work, and much more. There were some really beautiful living quarters trailers there inside the center to look at also. Some of our product dealers who were in attendance at this show were Action Rider Tack, Griffins Tack, Trail Rite, Cool Tack, Healthy as a Horse, the Distance Depot and the Australian Connection. That was really nice to be able to send customers wishing to purchase boots or products to one of their booths to make their purchase.
Our booth was quite special as we had a real horse for demonstrating our hoof boots. Karen brought her horse Chief. What a fine example of an Arabian horse he was too! He is very mild mannered and we believe he truly had a good time with all of us. He even got to walk around during his breaks between demos and shop for horse food samples. We found which booths were his favorites, and knew if he was to get out of the stall we set up, we would know right where to find him! Most vendors stated that they had never before had a real live customer come sample their product at a show. So Chief was a big hit and brought a lot of attention to the EasyCare booth.
Our booth consisted of a 9 x 10 stall, two tables for our displays and a repair station table. We set up the stall so that visitors could walk around three sides and really get close up to view the demos of installing and removing the hoof boots. We also had a speaker system set up so that Karen could talk and be heard by everyone in the crowd listening during the demo.
Our repair station was set up so that Mike and Dave could complete boot repairs and answer questions of visitors watching how it's done. It was great to have people gather around them and watch so that they could learn to do their own repairs if needed. We even had several ladies who wanted hands on training, so Mike got to do some customer training. In the two days that we were there, we completed 70 boot repairs, some parts were taken home with the visitor to repair themselves and we raised $267.00 for the " AERC Save the Trails" fund.
We also had several Hoof Care Practitioners stop by and visit with us. How exciting it is to talk with them as they are so passionate and enthusiastic about the bare hooves and keeping the horse as close to natural as possible. They are getting the education needed to be able to offer full service to their clients. We saw Bruce Goode from Natural Hoof Care in Canada and had a wonderful visit with him. Hoof practitioner Cindy Bell was here to visit our booth. Ed and Linda McCoskey were there to participate in a demo for some hands on training. They are starting up their business out of Redding, California and are so excited about what they are learning and doing to help horses. We applaud people like Bruce Goode, Ed McCoskey and Cindy Bell, as they are striving to take care of the client from start to finish and then some, to promote barefoot for the good of the horse!
We even had two Chefs come to view Chief while he was having a snack.....mmmmm-good!
Chief just could not figure out why this horse that we passed several times would not say hi or follow him. He just stood still!!!!!!
Can you guess which hooves are real?
On Saturday, we were visited during the day by some of the Young Riders group who were there raising money in their booth for their group of young endurance riders. EasyCare had some really nice hoof picks and 2008 calendars to hand out to each youngster. We know a good time was had by all.
If we missed seeing you at this tradeshow, we will have a booth at the Equine Affaire in Columbus, Ohio in April. Please stop by to say "Hi" and let us answer your questions and help with all of your booting needs.
Happy Riding to All!!!!
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