I recently started my two five-year-old Tennessee Walking horses in Limited Distance rides this spring, barefoot and booted.

 

Fizzer is my own breeding, a filly born to a goofy old mare on a steep rocky hillside in Mendocino. She has grown up to be a large 16.1 hands, raw boned mare who moves very quickly, with lots of spooking, high action, and fast acceleration/deceleration and direction changes. At vet checks, the vets are agape as she 'racks out', dragging me along behind her. They ask me if she can do that speed for 30 miles. I smile and tell them she is a rocket ride. When they ask me about the Easyboots I tell them she has never had shoes. They are amazed.

 

On her first 25 miler she never threw a Grip, and she finished in just over 3 hours. I think the traction of the Grips gave her the confidence to go very fast over the muddy, steep, rocky, and unsure footing of that ride. She loves to gallop downhill, and she never took a mis-step.

 

Red is an 1100 pound stallion I have raised from a baby. He has never had metal shoes either. He is 15.1 hands, built like a tank, and wears size 3 Easyboots (with dome pads). His first 25 miler was in hot weather in the coastal mountains of California. We slid down steep rocky jeep roads, stepped into the muddy spring grass to graze, and waded knee-deep (he loves that) into cattle-seasoned sucking-mud stock ponds to drink, and he never lost a boot.

 

 

We put some wear on those puppies, but they never came off. In fact, for the last vet check, I took off all four boots and trotted out that way. Not an ounce of lameness and we passed the vet check with flying colors.

 

Attatched are a pic of each at their first LD's this spring, wearing Easyboots on all eight feet.