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"Every Good Pony Needs a Kid - and some ponies need an Epic or two"

Batchelor is a Welsh Mountain pony who was well bred and a winner at shows like the Sydney Royal. Unfortunately after coming home from one show, he had massive hair loss and foundered. He went on for a couple of years with foundered feet, and was suffering badly.

His owner was told by vets that his only options were to keep the horse on bute or put him down. At this stage the owner did some research of his own and decided to look at the alternative solution of physiologically correct trimming.

He contacted John Gorman and the horse was moved to John's property at Collector to begin his rehabilitation. Batchelor had trouble even walking fifty metres from the horse transport to the paddock. After a couple of years, Batchelors feet are good enough that he can walk trot and canter. However he will never be as good as he was, because of the damage done to his feet while foundered.

His owner was very attached to the horse and does not want to sell him, so Batchelor is now being used by young riders to gain some confidence before moving on to another horse. The kids are told before they start riding him, that when their riding gets to a level that they need to go on to a new horse, Batchelor has to go back to Gormans and then on to the next new rider.

He is perfect for the job because of his lovely nature - a real little sweety. He loves the attention and the kids love to be with him. A day out at pony club is just a bit too much for him though, and so he was fitted with some size 1 EasyBoot Epics. With the boots, Batchelor can stay with each kid longer, because they can do more with him and even do some low jumps without him pulling up sore.

The Easyboots enable Batchelor to handle those long hard days at pony club and help provide those prize ribbons and big smiles on the kids faces. Attached is a photo of Batchelors latest Kid riding bareback at the recent Kambah (suburb of Canberra, Australia) Pony Club Gymkhana.

-Anna Macauliffe