From: Lisa Faryadi
[mailto:faryadi@xxxxxxxxxxxx] Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 9:09 AM To: 'Garrett.Ford' Cc: 'ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'; 'Pamela Burton' Subject: VT 100 and Glue-on boots
Dear Garrett,
We are back, and as you know
already, we had a great ride. With the help of Glue-on boots, a wonderful crew
and an awesome horse, we came in 1st place and beat the course
record by 39 minutes, finishing in 11 hours; 22 minutes. I had tested the
Glue-ons on my horse, “ Bullseye”, at home for 7 days, riding him about 40
miles on different terrains. I was pleased with his movement and
surefootedness , especially on pavement, so I tried them for the 1st
time on a ride in VT. About 70% of the course in the Vermont 100 ride is
hard-packed gravel roads, with constant climbs and descends.
Bullseye and I like to fly down the hills, and I felt like these boots
gave us perfect traction; he didn’t slip even once. It had been raining
in Vermont for several days, and portions of the trail, going through woods,
and climbing up rocky river beds, were quite muddy. He had no problem through
mud, and I actually think he had much better traction climbing over slick
rocks. The only time we slipped a little, was cantering over wet
grass about a foot tall that was matted down and was slick and on soft ground,
but other horses with steel shoes were doing the same. On other grassy areas
that were recently cut, we had no problem at any gait. I was paying special
attention to his performance on grass, because his next 100-mile ride will be
the WEG test event in Kentucky in October. I remember from a ride in Kentucky
three years ago, how slippery the wet grass was there even with steel
shoes. So I was concerned , because in Kentucky, there is just about nothing
but grass. But I think the boots will perform just fine.
Another concern was how they
would hold up on the abrasive gravel roads. As I had mentioned to you before,
last year we won the same ride in steel shoes, but the shoes were worn down
50%. The best I could tell, the front boots were just a little bit more
than 50% worn out at some areas, but the back ones had quite a bit more tread
left on them. I should mention that I borrowed a couple of Gloves from Darolyn
Butler to keep with my crew, just in case I needed them. She also finished the
100 in Glue-ons and came in 11th place, and she had a rider in 75
that came in 10th place with Glue-ons. At first she had
boots only on front, and barefoot on the back. But at the last hold, with 12
more miles to go they glued boots on the back. I was quite impressed when I
heard that how quickly they cleaned the hooves with alcohol, dried them
with a towel, and glued the boots on while the horse was eating. Yesterday at
home, I pulled the boots off. I was trying to see if I could just pull
them by hand; no way possible. I wanted to see how well they were attached
after 6 days and 100 miles, and they were still attached perfectly. It
took the usual screw driver and hammer to pull them off. They probably
would have stayed on for another 100 miles. One day I’d like to try them
on multi-day rides. I’d also like to drill holes on the bottom and inject
padding for added protection on rocky rides. One final thing
I really liked about the boots was the close and snug fit they had with
no extra bulk and no interference at all. I didn’t even use
interference boots, which I’ve always used with steel shoes.
