We as barefoot supporters of endurance riding need to make a committment to spread the word concerning AERC’s program to donate dollars for each mile a horse completes in EasyCare’s hoof boots. When I went to my first endurance LD of the season last weekend and produced my forms to verify that we were riding booted the ride manager, nor the veterinarian who signed off on my forms had heard anything about EasyCare’s EASYCARE GIVES BACK TO AERC program. This could mean a lot of payback to our sponsoring organization during this time of economic downturn.
If you know folks who are booting, bring some extra verification forms along to the ride. Share the program information with other riders, ride management, and your ride veterinarians. It is an opportunity to support the sport we love, doing what we like to do (riding our horses barefoot & booted). It is also an opportunity to promote barefooting philosophy with your non-booting competitors.
~Endurance Granny
Michelle, I think you might be confusing the hoof boot program with the benefits of being involved on the Easyboot Facebook page. The Easyboot Give’s back program donates $ back to AERC for each mile ridden in a sanctioned ride. That money goes to support the AERC.
Now the facebook site has interesting little contests (like the T-Shirt Slogan Contest), themed photo contests (currently camping with your horse), promotions (such as a discount on the new t-shirts), and I wouldn’t be surprised if other "deals" are eventually offered for those participating at Facebook with Easycare.
As for filling out the form after the fact? I guess you could contact the ride manager and the ride vet and ask them if they would be willing to sign it. What I do is carry a binder in my truck with all of my forms, ride entries, AERC membership card, and trail maps all in one place. When I went to sign up for my ride, and vetted in I asked if they would sign, and they said they would. I also got two rider signatures by asking them, and telling that the program gives back a donation to AERC. It took about ten minutes of my time. I want to see AERC being viable and sanctioning rides in the future. The little extra time is worth it, if it means I will have rides to go to in the future.
Easycare has a lot of information that will get you up to speed on their blogs and website. ~E.G.
But how do I fill out the form after the fact?
I thought that after you registered, once you submitted some miles (got on the "board"), you qualified to get special deals or something. I remember reading that…
Michelle, are speaking in terms of Easycare’s facebook forum? There is a very active group of boot users there, and Easycare does indeed offer some incentives from time to time for followers of their facebook site (for instance discount on the new t-shirts just released). If so you will need a face book account, then key word search Easyboot to get onto their page and then follow that group.
Hi Michelle,
In this instance, you would only qualify for the 50 miles in the front boots because the ride distance was 50.
There is no alternative way to get credit for this: remember there are tens of thousands of dollars at stake here – partly for the riders themselves and partly for AERC so we have to build in some mechanism to make sure the rules are followed.
You are not too late: you have 30 days to submit your forms. In the future, you could always get signatures from the ride manager and the vet if everyone else has left.
Which Board would you like to get on?
Is there an easier way to get our credit for this? I didn’t bring my form because I was planning on just wearing the two front boots for just the first loop, but ended up wearing the fronts the whole 50 miles and the hind boots for the second half of the ride. Thus, I didn’t have my form with me. In addition, I rode turtle, so by the time I finished and got my horse settled, everyone was gone. I’m not sure when I would have had the chance to go around and get everyone’s signature anyway. I don’t expect to win the contest or anything, but I’d like AERC to get the credit and I’d also like to get on the board so I can start getting the special deals participants get notice of =)