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“Boot of “Fred” (WC Freiheit)
Grey Angelo Arab Gelding 1985, 15 3 1/2hh

Known to his friends as “The big White train.”

This boot was new in about 1990, became his when I acquired him in 1992.

He had second rate feet, mis-walked and prone to losing shoes, especially the wide, low-heeled right fore.

In 1995 Old Dominion, he pulled the right fore at 42 miles, wore this boot the remaining 58. I was going “cavalry, so I didn’t have him re-shod, which I would have been reluctant to have a stranger do to him, anyway. The strap kept slipping up over his heel in rough patches or deep footing, hence the curiously mutilated heel-strap trimmed by a pen-knife. At Tevis, he lost the right fore on my “First ride” after the vetting-in! This boot got me back to camp with no foot damage. John Crandell re-shod him in the twilight, and the “rest is history!"

- Matthew Mackay-Smith