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Hoof boots that stay on!

Another happy Cavallo customer!

From: jo*****@comcast.net
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2011 4:27 PM
To: Krystle
Subject: Re: Invoice

Dear Krystle:

The two new Simple boots arrived; I now have a set of four.  The test course has two parts; a 12 mile county dirt road with mega pools of water and mud; the second a six hundred acre vineyard with hills, muddy arroyos, with thick, clay mud over the hoof ring, slick grass on the hilltops and lots of rocks, mini water courses, Egrets, hawks, the occasional eagle and this past weekend two coyotes the size of large German shepards that we cut off from a jackrabbit luncheon that caused the horses to shy and spin.

I have run this same course with gloves with and without safety straps, renegades with little bitty micro set-screws, epics with ski bindings and edges with hose clamps.  At some point with all types the trail behind me was littered with bent boots, destroyed boots, lost boots, and mangled boots.  Over-engineered, complex closures, cages, all failed.

On a usual trail ride I carried up to three, sometimes four spares to allow for front/rear/ left/right situations.  I looked like a traveling tack store with my jumbo pack saddle bags. The only, the one and only boot that has stayed with me for a whole day are the Cavallo simple boots.

Admittedly, my horse has an overreach problem that could never be solved by the farrier.  I have had iron shoes sucked off at Granite Bay in the springtime and the air full of flying iron while going uphill on the big quarter horse as he takes off like a souped-up Harley.  I have tried everything including duct tape and vet wrap.  Only the Cavallos stay with us; the rear of the Cavallos resembles an over reach boot.  At Cronan Ranch, where we water the horses in the South Fork of the American,  and East Bay Mud’s Comanche Reservoir with lots of steep hills and mud, the Cavallos stay with me.  On Sunday afternoon the vineyard clay mud on flat reached almost to the fetlocks and accumulated until we appeared to be wearing galoshes.  It even sounded like I had galoshes on him; we splashed through seventy feet of runoff water to clear them then used a hose and scrub brush at the barn. The Cavallos stayed with us.

The point for us is to ride the damned horses, not kneel under them replacing boots in the wet.  With our lighter load we can now carry a wee container of single malt and a bit of chocolate; the horseman’s essentials.

Fondly, John *******

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