Submitted by Stacey Maloney, Team Easyboot 2014 Member
Ahhhh that title makes it seem so dramatic and difficult, when really it’s not. These Easyboot Epics have seen hundreds of miles and this one in particular is an older one that I used on Katchina’s hinds over really rough terrain. I usually don’t boot her hinds because she drags her toes quite a bit, but at times life demanded it, so on went the boots and after miles and miles of being drug through the gravel one of the cables frayed and broke.
A new cable was easily ordered from EasyCare and I assembled the tools I thought I would need to replace it.
You can find the full list on instructions on replacing the cable on the EasyCare Website or YouTube.
I had to do things a little differently than the instructions stated but surely ended with the same result. I started by taking everything off my boot because I couldn’t easily get the old cable removed without doing so because the frayed edges kept getting “trapped” in the nooks and crannies – so off came the gaiter and front closure buckle.
I paid close attention to how everything was put together as I was taking it apart and had confidence I could get it all back together with relative ease. The next step was stringing the new cable around the white rollers in the sides of the boot. I had a hard time feeding it around the roller so instead took the roller out for a minute, pushed a loop of the cable through the hole in the side and wiggled the white roller back into place.
Next I fed the ends of the new wire through the center of the fastener buckle and then through the crimp provided, laid it all on a hard surface and flattened the crimp tight with a hammer.
I replaced the buckle on the front of the boot with the crimp laying flat underneath and made sure the cable that came out of the bottom of the side holes went to the fastener buckle and the cable that came out the top of the side holes would be the part used to tighten the boot onto the hoof.
I reattached the gaiter and this old boot is good for another 100 miles (or likely more).
