Boots for Buckshot

By Patty Wilber

Maybe not the boots you expected.

Not:

Those are for people–useful in mud and snow and muddy manure and horse pee (which can be used to add a patina to brass and copper…)

Not Renegades:

I have seen these in person  one time, in passing.  I am looking forward to checking out Dusty’s next week.  Renegades seem to be the Next Hot Horse Boot.

Easy Boots (which are truthfully not that Easy to put on) have been around for a good long while, and if they fit right, they do work, but if they don’t fit right, they fall off!

But for Buckshot, NOT Easy Boots:

Not Boa boots.

Why would one want any of these boots anyhow?  Well, I don’t, but only because I am LAZY.  They are great to protect the barefoot horse from excessive wear, chips and bruises.  It is often nice to keep horses barefoot for the health of their feet.  However, the boots can be time consuming to put on (especially if you are riding a gob of horses every day and must tack and untack alone), they fall off and are hard to find again on a trail if they are black, and sometimes they rub the horse’s leg or hoof.

We (well, the farrier did it, “we” made the decision) put steel  front shoes on Longshot the other day.  At 20 months, he was becoming pigeon-toed, and his hooves kept chipping so the correctional trim wouldn’t hold.  The steel shoes keep angle of his hoof true.  We will probably re-shoe him after 6-8 weeks and then let the second set grow off at 10-12 weeks.  By then his legs should have stabilized some and he can go barefoot until he gets started under saddle. Boots are not not an option as they can’t stay on for six weeks.

 But for Buckshot, I although need shoes–aluminum on the front and steel sliders on the back–we also need boots: sports boots, bell boots and skid boots.

Sports boots:  Of course there are myriad different styles.  Basically, they are neoprene-like, wrap around the leg and hook on with Velcro.

Velcro is an amazing invention. Prior to Velcro, boots would have to buckle or be wrapped and if wrapped, the wraps were tied on.  I still have some wraps I bought from the Tennessee Walking Horse supply store in Libertyville, Ill., when I was about 16 (1977 ish).  They have ties.  Velcro was patented in the 50’s but the patent expired in 1978, so I guess that is when it took off in the market.

As for boots, I am kind of liking the SMBIII’s (others have had issues with their durability).

These boots help protect and support the leg.

Bell boots:

These help protect the lower leg, especially the bulb (back) of the horse’s hoof from the hind foot over reaching and causing injury.

Buckshot looks good in black, but you don’t have to settle for black!

Or solid colors either.

With both sport boots and bell boots on, you get something like this:

Buckshot also needs skid boots (to protect his legs when he slides). Those come in many styles as well.  I used these (below)  to start with, but as soon as I put them on, he walks like he has ants in his pants–lifts his legs really high and kicks out.  Plus, sand worked up in there.

So I switched to these:

Which as you can see, have buckles.  They ended up rubbing a raw spot.

So I have ordered these:

with VELCRO!

Nationals are coming up  July! We will need our boots in a row!