Karen and Thunder.
One of my goals for the year was all five days of the Owyhee Canyonlands. Last year I used the Glue On’s, which worked beautifully. They were flawless and still very difficult to remove after a week, but I did get them off.
Now as I see it, the drawback to glue is its pretty tough to clean them and reuse them even though I had lots of wear left on them. Plus I pretty well destroyed one while taking it off. I kept mulling over all this and kept thinking of not gluing boots. But I had a little voice telling me “you know you will get rubs after a week” and “you have a larger chance of acquiring scratches after a week”. So many “you coulds”! This Queen of Tightwads could also save money using the Easyboot Glove Wides that I already had and not buy more boots, glue, tips etc. Hmmm.
My friend, Tamara Baysinger, had reminded me of the “nylon trick”. She had been using the nylons to prevent rubs on her mare. I used them once in awhile to keep the cheat grass out of my velcro on the gaiters. I vegetated on all this and finally decided, no glue. I’ll take my chances.
The Glove goes on over the nylon and hoof without a hitch.
Fasten the gaiter and pull the top of the nylon down. I tuck a bit under the gaiter just because it looks better.
Now after a lot of stickers it begins to look pretty ragged. But when the boot is removed the nylon top still protects the gaiter.Every day after the ride I would pull the boots and bathe my horse because it was hot. I’d get all the sweat off and allow air to get to the hoof and pasterns each evening and all night long. I checked closely for any signs of scratches and I had none. There was not even one little bump, which I found very surprising.
We finished all five days without one rub and without any scratches! The Glove Wides still had plenty of wear left too so this tightwad still had boots to use.
Submitted by Karen Bumgarner, Team Easyboot 2011 Member
