Submitted by Sheri Devouassoux
I wanted to announce that yesterday I did my first ride with my Renegades. I finished the LBL 25 in Kentucky. The trail was very rocky with hardpacked roads. The boots performed flawlessly. They did not twist, fall off, or rub. At all! I was exceptionally pleased with the boots. Yay for Renegades!
The best part was when the vet used a thermal imaging camera on my horse’s hooves immediately following the ride. I think that even the vet was surprised that there were NO HOT SPOTS anywhere where the boots had touched him. That sealed the deal for me that my boots do NOT rub!
Those South East region rides really set quite an example. They also had a scale to weigh your horse (although my gelding declined. Probably because he does not like to be weighed in public.). That photo shows such nice heel first landing. That is something he could not accomplish last year with steel shoes.
My gelding is Insulin Resistant. Although I try really hard to manage his diet it is really hard since I board him at a 45+ horse facility. All last year he wore shoes and was ouchy when I rode him on gravel or hard-packed roads. He also had the worst case of thrush I had ever seen. He suffered a mild medial collateral ligament injury in his RF hoof last August at a ride. That was when I decided to try barefoot and booted because obviously steel shoes were doing him no favors. I pulled shoes in September, gave him four months of complete rest, got some Renegades as a Christmas present, and started a long, slow recovery. He was not fit at all for this ride so I finished in dead last place. But he was 100% sound, so that was all that mattered to me. I was really, really thankful that I had four boots on him because it was a pretty rocky ride. There is no way my horse would have stayed sound with four steel shoes on. Period. Overall I am exceptionally pleased with the Renegades. My orange boots really attracted a lot of attention.
I had only done two short training rides with the boots (one 5 mile and one 8 mile) prior to the ride, because I just don’t have trails to ride on at my barn and I only recently got my own trailer. So it was really a sort of trial by fire. I don’t recommend to others that they just go out and do a ride with the boots but I am glad that I did. I would also like to point out that I rode many times in the sand outdoor arena to check for fit and to see if crud would accumulate in the boots. As his frogs recovered from the horrible thrush (that he probably suffered from his entire life before I bought him last April) less and less sand wound up in the boot. By the time I did the ride last weekend his frogs were in fine shape and there was no debris in his boots when I took them off at the end of the ride.
I think that the Renegade® Hoof Boots are an outstanding product. My only regret is that I did not try them sooner.
Sincerely,
Sheri Devouassoux
Sheri’s story is a great testimonial for going barefoot, as well as an example of the technology behind Renegades: The pivoting action of the heel captivator moves with the heel, thereby eliminating a major cause of rubbing. Thanks, Sheri, for your submission, and we wish you the best of luck on the rest of your ride season.