Many of us have had that one in a million horse that we wish we would have taken a bit better care of.  We wish we would have saved his legs, we wish we would have figured out ways to train him smarter and we wish we could have found a way to keep him at his peak longer.

I have a couple of those one in a million horses right now and I’ve been trying to learn from past mistakes.  In the sport of endurance, horses end up doing mileage on hard packed dirt roads.  Yes, we try to avoid these type of surfaces but it’s very difficult to do real speed training on narrow, twisty single track.

What if your horse could do hard miles in a urethane boot fitted with a custom cushion orthotic?  The system is easy to build.  All my horses do their speed miles in boots filled with either Vettec Sil-Pak, Vettec Equi Pak Soft, or Glue U Shufill.

I have been using this technique for several years with great success.  I can see a difference in the workouts speeds, movement after workout, filling after workout and how the horses train after.

Start by drilling two holes in the area of your boots that matches the collateral grooves.

Two holes drilled to match collateral grooves in the hoof.

You can use the same molds for roughly a week.  Any longer and I recommend doing the process again.

The system has worked very well for me over the last couple years and I can see a difference in my horses.  In the end, the price is roughly $6.00 per foot.  Yes, that is a bunch of money each week but I would continue doing it if it was $100.00 per hoof.  It’s hard to find the great horses and important to keep them around.  The four main reasons I would continue at $100.00 per foot are below.

1.  The horse is barefoot the majority of the time.  No pads or silicone under pads causing funk after 6 weeks.

2.  The horse has the cushion of the boot and the custom padded orthotic.

3.  Horses definitively train harder and recover quicker.

4.  Horses last longer.

Yes, your friends will think you are crazy but you will have longer with that special horse.  Isn’t that what it’s all about?

Garrett Ford

easycare-president-ceo-garrett-ford

President & CEO

I have been President and CEO of EasyCare since 1993. My first area of focus for the company is in product development, and my goal is to design the perfect hoof boot for the barefoot horse.