Dear Garrett,
We are back, and as you know already, we had a great ride.
With the help of Glue-on boots, a wonderful crew and an awesome horse, we came
in 1st place and beat the course record by 39 minutes, finishing in 11 hours;
22 minutes. I had tested the Glue-ons on
my horse, “ Bullseye”, at home for 7 days, riding him about 40 miles on
different terrains. I was pleased with
his movement and surefootedness , especially on pavement, so I tried them for
the 1st time on a ride in VT. About 70%
of the course in the
Bullseye and I like to fly down the hills, and I felt like these boots gave us perfect traction; he didn’t slip even once. It had been raining in Vermont for several days, and portions of the trail, going through woods, and climbing up rocky river beds, were quite muddy. He had no problem through mud, and I actually think he had much better traction climbing over slick rocks. The only time we slipped a little, was cantering over wet grass about a foot tall that was matted down and was slick and on soft ground, but other horses with steel shoes were doing the same. On other grassy areas that were recently cut, we had no problem at any gait. I was paying special attention to his performance on grass, because his next 100-mile ride will be the WEG test event in Kentucky in October. I remember from a ride in Kentucky three years ago, how slippery the wet grass was there even with steel shoes. So I was concerned , because in Kentucky, there is just about nothing but grass. But I think the boots will perform just fine.
Another concern was how they would hold up on the abrasive
gravel roads. As I had mentioned to you before, last year we won the same ride
in steel shoes, but the shoes were worn down 50%. The best I could tell, the
front boots were just a little bit more
than 50% worn out at some areas, but the back ones had quite a bit more tread
left on them. I should mention that I borrowed a couple of Gloves from Darolyn
Butler to keep with my crew, just in case I needed them. She also finished the
100 in Glue-ons and came in 11th place, and she had a rider in 75 that came in
10th place with Glue-ons. At first she had boots only on front, and barefoot on
the back. But at the last hold, with 12 more miles to go they glued boots on
the back. I was quite impressed when I heard
that how quickly they cleaned the hooves with alcohol, dried them with a
towel, and glued the boots on while the horse was eating. Yesterday at home, I
pulled the boots off. I was trying to see if I
could just pull them by hand; no way possible. I wanted to see how well
they were attached after 6 days and 100 miles, and they were still attached
perfectly. It took the usual screw
driver and hammer to pull them off. They
probably would have stayed on for another 100 miles. One day I’d like to try them on multi-day
rides. I’d also like to drill holes on
the bottom and inject padding for added protection on rocky rides. One final
thing I really liked about the
boots was the close and snug fit they had with no extra bulk and no interference at all. I didn’t even use interference boots, which
I’ve always used with steel shoes.
Thanks again for a great product,
Farzad Faryadi
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