Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

At 08:52 AM 6/11/2004, you wrote:
> Is this common? anything to worry about?

It is common when the horses have soft bulbs, such as during the winter or 
if they are standing in mud or wet pasture.

As with most things involving horses, this is one that the problem is best 
solved by avoiding it to begin with.  It people have problems with 
Easyboots, it is generally due to operator error.  Learning how to use an 
Easyboot is something that all endurance riders should know.

Once you have heel bruising the best way to solve that is to try to keep 
the horse off of wet ground.  Get some iodine, and spray or dobber it on to 
help dry things out.  Soak once or twice a day in warm water and epsom 
salts.  One trick I used to use when we had weeks of mud and the horses 
were barefoot and I rode all winter w/ Easyboots is I would wrap their feet 
with vetwrap or else just use an old cotton sock.  I would be amazed at how 
much moisture would come out and totally soak the vetwrap and socks thru, 
so I'd just change them so they would stay dry.

When a heel bulb is soft don't ever leave an Easyboot with a back strap on 
your horse for an extended period!  Before putting an Easyboot on a horse 
with a soft bulb you have several options:

1)  cut the heel strap off and foam the boot on  (I've done this with great 
success)
2)  cut the heel strap down to half the width it is normally (you should 
probably do this anyway, IMO)
3)  wrap the horses hoof with vetwrap
4)  use a cotton sock or something similar instead of vetwrap

A lot of adjustments can be made to keep the boot on and use it in a way 
that doesn't cause problems for the horse.  It really is important to keep 
problems like sore heel bulbs from happening in the first place.  If a 
horses heel bulb is so soft and tender that you can't put an Easyboot on, 
then that is probably the universe trying to tell you something. 
:^)  Riding a horse in that situation is probably only going to make the 
problem worse, with or without an Easyboot.

If somebody needs help with Easyboots at Cold Springs next week, come on 
over and ask and I'll be happy to try and help as much as I can.  I have 
two endurance horses that have more than 12,000 miles in Easyboots.  We 
have encountered almost every kind of a problem possible, and found 
solutions.  That is what endurance riders do. :-)

Karen
in NV

P.S.  links to my Easyboot pages:

http://www.redwrench.com/ezboot/default.htm
http://www.redwrench.com/ezboot/easyboot101part2.html

and some older pages, this shows how I keep them under control in the 
trailer :-)

http://www.redwrench.com/EZboot/karen/karen.html

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Arabians were bred for years primarily as a war horse and those
requirements are similar to what we do today with endurance riding. 
~  Homer Saferwiffle

ridecamp.net information: http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/

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