Goodbye NGs

I miss the good old barefoot days I had with Gem. Well, actually not really. I liked the ease of care, but I was always a little timid about going fast over rocks. Having her in the NGs up front/steel in the back gave me a boost of confidence to move out over the flat and rocky access roads that litter the trail systems around here.

The NGs had a lot going for them. They provided a nice wide base of protection for the hoof while still allowing the natural flexion of the heel bulbs. Gem seemed to move out really well in them and never slipped or missed a beat in all types of terrain (except for water since we never managed to find a water crossing while wearing them).

Pete looking handsome

They held up really well too. After 100 miles of gravel at Biltmore, they were still able to be reset and she hadn't lost any in the two cycles of use.

There was one glaring issue that played heavily on my mind from the start though. My farrier charged $260 to put them on with 4 nails, a small amount of glue on the sides and packing.

Even had things worked out differently, it was highly unlikely that I could afford to keep her in a set long term. After the mini heart attack I had when he finished putting them on and told me the price, I told Dusty that I would most likely reset these ones and have to switch to steel. Only when I reset the ones I had with nails only because the side clips that he glues gets ruined after one time, he still charged me $190 and that was pulling her hinds and going barefoot in the back for the summer. Ouch. A reset wasn't really in the budget either apparently.

I was still plotting and planning a way to try to make it all work out financially when I went to the barn on Sunday and saw this

The grand canyon does not belong in my horse's hoof. Ugh. Thankfully it was dry and no signs of thrush. The squeegee of packing out the back isn't too pretty either.  

It actually didn't surprise me which is kind of sad. I had a bad feeling during the last farrier visit. I know I am not a farrier and I do not proclaim to know more than a professional, but I do know my mare's hooves inside and out. I like to inspect the soles to make sure that the heels are taken down far enough each time and this became even more important to do when they were hidden under a shoe. This last time, he slapped the shoe on so fast that I didn't even realize it and when I asked about the heel he shrugged me off. I did manage to inspect the left foot and noted the extra heel and made him take it down.

When he was gone and I was sweeping up the aisle way, I noticed that while there was a decent sized pile of clipped and shaved hoof by her left front, there wasn't much of anything by the front right. I was worried that her heel had been left really high and that is not good.

I'm not going to fully blame the NG shoe for the above atrocity. I mostly blame the bad trim job although I think had she been in steel it wouldn't have propagated so badly. Since the NG allows for the natural flexion I believe that the high heel coupled with the flexion and the frog plate created a lot of friction between the heel bulbs thus causes a crevice to form.

Regardless, the shoe needed pulled and the hoof addressed. I shot a text with picture to farrier Sunday morning asking if this was a problem that needed to be addressed. The shoe had just been put on June 2nd. He never responded.

Gem staring me down as I arrived at the barn

I then texted my BO asking when her farrier would be out next. As luck would have it, he was due out the next day and I added her to the schedule to pull the shoe, look for issues, trim and put on a steel set. I didn't think I would make it out there in time, but work was a mess and I escaped early to head up. I got there after the shoes were pulled and the foot trimmed, but was able to inspect the feet really thoroughly. After the trim the crevasse was much, much shallower and he took off a crap ton of heel to get it even with the sole. It was almost embarrassing.

Would I try the NGs again? Yeah. I still love the theory and she moved well in them. I don't like the NGs paired with a bad trim and I don't like the price tag that came with them. I think the NGs are not as forgiving as steel and they weren't as easily shaped to the foot like a pair of hot shod steel shoes are. The summer will show if she does equally as well in steel as she did in the synthetic shoes or not. It cost me $80 to shoe the front and trim the back in comparison.

The farrier deals mostly with event horses although he at least knew what endurance was. He also put up with my million questions and even took a marker out to draw on the hoof to show me all the important lines he looks at. It was an interesting 2 hours.

The NGs Come Off

Made really big so you can see Pete's face

Farrier was slated to come out Friday afternoon to replace all four shoes. It was earlier than normal, only about 5 weeks, but she needed all new ones for the ride coming up.

Friday was one of the hottest days all week, if not the hottest, coming in around 91 or so degrees. When I pulled in both horses were grazing near the drive entrance as I waved my hand out my window and yelled a hello to Gemmie. Both horses raced me to the gate and by the look on Pete's adorable face you can see what his thoughts on the temperature was.

I grabbed Gem and took her up to the jump field to get some hand jogging practice in. She used to be a real brat at dragging her feet and making herself look nearly lame, but we have worked on it quit a bit. I wanted to do a refresher and she did remarkably well. Farrier texted me backing me up an hour due to a really busy day, so I let her hand graze for a while and then took her into the barn. BO has told me in the past that I am free to use the stalls whenever I want and since they all have a personal fan, I put Gem in the large stall, threw a flake of hay in and turned the fan on. She stood in front of it and munched her hay. Pete was none too pleased being left out alone, so he got to come in too.

Pete living the high life

Farrier finally texted me that he was 5 minutes out and so I grabbed Gem and put her in the cross ties. Guys, she is looking so healthy and fit right now. A little extra pudge to get her through a ride, but otherwise sleek and happy. I didn't grab a picture of her, so you will just have to take my word for it.

He got to work prying off the NGs on her fronts. I asked if they were able to be reused and he said that typically they can be reset a second time with nails only depending on the amount of wear. Mine showed some wear, but still had a lot of life in them, but I wanted a new set.

When he pulled off the front left shoe and put it on the ground, my stomach dropped to the floor and my heart raced. It looked like he had ripped off half her frog with it and the stench was awful. I made a comment and he looked back over his shoulder and laughed at my expression.

Shoe on far left all cleaned up and ready for use straight nailed. Packing in the center which made me think half her foot came off. Not yet cleaned up shoe on the right. 

Apparently that was just the packing. Phew! I knew he had put packing in, but had visioned it just filling the hole and didn't realize it also sank into the frog and surrounding grooves. Heart attack averted. The stench he said is typical and doesn't change much if you use the copper packing although this time he did end up using that instead of plain packing. Not sure why beyond the fact that that was what he had readily on hand.

He cleaned the hoof up and it looked really good. The frog has even started to expand some which is what I want. Farrier says that he has never seen a frog not respond and expand in these shoes and that he loves them for that reason. In his opinion they are better than being barefoot for that one specific reason. I can tell you that in my N=1 experiment, her frogs have responded better to the NG than barefoot.

All cleaned up and looking really nice. 

He then pried off the front right and the hind steels and got to work in the extreme heat and humidity. The application of these shoes is a royal pain and I am really glad I don't have to do it myself. I don't mind paying him to do it one bit.

In the end he cleaned up her old NGs by removing the old side wall clips and any extra glue he found. He gave them to me to hold onto saying that if I run into trouble on the ride he can straight nail these ones on to save me money since they have so much life still in them.

I am really liking the shoes. A lot. I need to speak with him about straight nailing them and not using packing for when we aren't in race mode. He charges $260 for all 4 (front NGs, glued and nailed with packing and hot shod with steel on the back) and I can't afford to do that year round. No way. If he is willing to straight nail them and then re use the shoes then I should be able to afford to keep her in them. I can then have the extra security of the glue and packing for an actual race and eat the extra cost a few times a year versus every 6-8 weeks.

Gemmie's New Kicks

One thing I adore about endurance is the constant learning curve that comes with it. I fully believe that you have to have a 100% open mind when it comes to this sport plus the ability to understand that there are about 1000 different ways to achieve the same thing and no one way is better than another or written in stone. What works today might not work tomorrow. What works for one horse, might not work for another. What works for one rider, might be detrimental to another. Constant learning, constant changes, constant challenges. 

What has worked for us thus far has been going barefoot. At a back of the pack pace for LD type distances, I still think barefoot is fine. When I jumped to 50s though, I began to get a bit iffy on the whole barefoot idea. To be clear, by barefoot I mean 100% barefoot. Not booted.  Gem did fine on her 50s barefoot, but the rocky one made my stomach turn a bit and the sandy one wore her hooves down so much that I worried she wouldn't have any left.

The biggest issue I have with barefoot isn't lameness or hoof wear though. It is all about ride strategy. The best thing I was ever told regarding endurance was the following which came from a 10,000 mile plus rider:

"Never tarry, never hurry"

It is a quote that runs through my head every time I ride. Look at the trail and make speed when you can and slow down when you need to for safety and longevity.

When going barefoot this doesn't always work out. Most trails I have ridden, whether for conditioning or in a ride, have been fairly technical with some flatter, easy gravel roads thrown in. Those flat, gravel roads are perfect for making up time and allowing you to slow down over the harder portions of the trail. Except, when I am riding barefoot I need to slow down on the gravel and then make up time on the hills or twisting forest trails. Not the best strategy.

I tried boots and loved how they reduced my stress regarding the trail. I could let Gem boogie on down the trail knowing that her hoofsies were protected and then let her slow down to pick her way around the tougher sections. Of course the boots didn't work out and added their own level of stress trying to make sure they were on, getting off to fix them and in general causing strife, but the feeling of freedom to move down the trail didn't leave me and made me ache to have it once again. If you don't already follow Liz over at In Omnia Paratus, please read her last post. She articulates the frustrations boots can bring and the decision to go with shoes very well.

So that meant shoes. But what type of shoes? I spent countless hours researching this, reading websites, looking up sources, talking to professionals and picking the brains of long time, high mileage endurance folks. Steel, aluminum, composite, ground control, epona, easycare, Razor, some fancy British racing shoes I can't recall the name of....so many shoes. So many promises of greatness. So much baloney.

In the end I decided to go with the Easycare Performance NG shoe. It fits in well with my own beliefs and functions as I would want a shoe to function. I had talked to my farrier in February about them and it turned out they were also his favorite shoe as well. I 100% trust my farrier. Not only is he the ride farrier at Biltmore (a huge plus), but has been the USA endurance team farrier in the past and was asked to be the team farrier this season as well. I think I can trust his opinion when it comes to shoeing the endurance horse.

Yesterday was shoe day. He pulled in 20 minutes early. I was shocked. Happy shocked. He had an apprentice with him who got busy trimming Pete while main farrier talked to me about what I wanted, my plans and why what I wanted wouldn't work. Wait...what?

I asked for NGs all around and he laughed. The NG is a round shoe. They are made for front hooves and while he will put them on hinds when made to, he thinks it is an expensive waste of a shoe. Gem's hinds are very narrow and long (the reason the boots wouldn't work) and he said they would be too wide for her which would not only make them function improperly, but would have a high risk of her stepping on them and ripping them off. I was thankful that he was honest and didn't waste my money. She ended up getting hot shod with steel on the hinds. I asked a dozen times if it would throw her off having two different types of shoes on and he said no about a dozen times.

He did like the idea of NGs on her fronts though. She got trimmed and I was happy to see that after about 8 months she has a brand new hoof capsule to the floor. All the weird flaring is now gone and the vertical line from the injury in the medial hoof wall is remaining superficial. The scar tissue has made her heel bulbs contract pretty significantly which was a known potential complication, but there isn't much to do about it but trim and work her. Main Farrier did say that he has yet to see a horse not increase the heel width in these shoes after two cycles. We will see.

I watched the process like a hawk and annoyed the snot out of him with a million questions. I wanted to learn all I could about the application process. He began with the trim and then scuffed up her hoof wall with the rasp. He did not use any flame to dry the hoof wall as I have seen on the Easycare videos and in his experience has not had any lost shoes.

He placed Adhere glue to the medial and lateral cuff , but did not use any on the sole of the hoof. He then slapped it on and nailed two nails per side. Borium nails were mentioned to me by two different people and so I asked him his thoughts. He stocks the nails, but in his opinion they are too much for normal conditions and he only uses them is really wet weather. He said that he would have them available at Biltmore and if it was wet to stop by and he would add them.

Once the glue dried, he added more to the outer cuff to seal the hoof wall to it. It wasn't the prettiest job since he didn't have latex gloves, but it was functional. After both shoes were on, he went back and added Equipak soft packing material to the center of each sole. He only filled it to the foam dam to prevent any sole pressure, but he said that leaving it open was just asking for a stone bruise. It dried quickly, he rasped the glue on the hoof wall to make it smoother and we were nearly done.

The last step was to rasp the sole at the toe to make a better break over point. He does this on every horse to reduce the torque.

Throughout the process he kept telling me that I should just apply them myself. He could come trim if I wanted, but that I was wasting money getting him to apply them. I am very much uncomfortable with the idea of nailing anything to my horse, but he was adamant that I should at least try it next time with his supervision. I may. We will see.

Gem looked great and moved off well afterward. I am giving her a couple days in the pasture to get used to them before working her. It is supposed to be very wet Thursday and Friday, so we will see what all I can get in.

Farrier will come out the week before the ride to put new shoes on her. If it was a 50, he would just have me run her in these, but for a 100 he likes shoes being a week out. The plan is to see how she does with conditioning in them and throw the next set on before the 100 and then pull them afterward. I don't have another ride on my calendar, regardless of how we do in the 100, until the fall due to a jam packed summer so there is no need to keep her shod.

Checking all these items off my to do list is feeling really good and making me super excited for the ride!!!

Renegade Fitting

Tuesday night is my night at the barn. I bailed on work an hour early to run to Tractor Supply and get a new hoof pick, gloves for Dusty and some Showsheen Mist for Gem's tangled mane. At the register the lady carded me for the Showsheen.

Ok...I get told I look young all the time (thanks for the good genetics, Mom!), but I am 33 and seriously I don't look under 18 or whatever age you can legally buy mane detangler in this state. Seriously, what do people use it for that you need to be an adult to buy it?  I think I might be in the wrong field. Maybe I should stockpile it for the black market.

I ended up getting to the barn and all set up around 5 just as the dark clouds also arrived. I ignored them since that seems to help a lot in these circumstances.

Gem was due for a trim anyway and I thought it would be best to try the boots on after a trim, so I tackled her four feet. The hinds are staying really nice and I was able to lower the front heels even more. Plus the BO is an ex-farrier and lent me his apron and hoof stand. I think he got tired of watching me perform his trade in the worst manner possible.

Her right after I finished with it. I haven't touched the left yet. It is seriously looking more and more normal every trim. I am so glad Liz convinced me to do this myself. 

When the thunder hit and the rain started pouring against the tin roof, I was worried that my plans were ruined. Except when I gave Gem back her foot I saw this:

Completely unfazed mare 

Rain, thunder, lighting...who cares! As a side note - look how sweaty she is just standing in the barn . I felt a little bad depriving her of the nice cool shower, but figured she would survive. 

I continued on my way and sometime later I finally finished. Luckily, the rain had too and so after I quenched my thirst with lead  hose water I decided to move forward with trying on her boots.

I tried the fronts first.

The boots fit just like I read they should: slide on and require a small tap from the palm to seat the toe. The captivators slid up on her heels and settled fine at first.  I tried to tighten the pastern strap leaving two fingers looseness, but the strap then didn't reach the rubber stops on the far side. I could make it if I pulled super tight, but that goes against the function of the boot. I left it as loose as I dared and made a note to ask. The toe strap is a little confusing as far as how tight to go with it. The directions are extremely vague stating to tighten just as much as you need, more if  harder terrain, less for easy terrain, think of your own shoes. I made it snug and hoped it was correct.

Everything looked fine in regards to length and width. The captivator liked to fall down on her heels instead of staying where I put it. I tried to lift it back up, but it wouldn't stay. I don't know if it was just settling to where it should be or if this was a function of the cables, too tight toe, too tight pastern or something I didn't even think of. Another mental note to ask.

Front right in the Viper shell with original Renegade captivator. I like how her hair line is much more parallel to the boot angle now. You can see the gap to the pastern strap.

Right front still. I'm not sure if the captivator fits her well or not. The padding comes down lower and nearly touches the shell, but the actual plastic part is a good fingers width above it. 

The toe strap was made snug and it fit into the rubber loops with a 1/4 inch left over. The pastern strap was just at 2 fingers loose and the tip very barely reached the rubber stoppers. 

Left front fit the same basically. The pastern strap had a little more give to it than to the right, but still not reaching the rubber stoppers all that well. I think the captivator should come up a hair, but it kept settling down like this. I'm thinking maybe the cables need lengthened. Just a guess though. 

See how the pastern strap doesn't reach the rubber stopper? That can't be right, but I have no clue what the fix is.

Again, the padding on the captivator was just barely not touching the shell, but the plastic was a finger width above it. I wanted it higher, but couldn't get it to stay

With both fronts on in the matter of minutes and without any cursing at all, I moved to the hinds. It was immediately evident they were too small. They were much harder to get on and the shell didn't cover the hoof as well. I tried to pull the much smaller and more streamlined Viper captivator over her heel bulbs, but it wouldn't go without forcing it. I gave up and put them back in the box to be exchanged.

The shell was harder to get on and was a much tighter fit in general. The shell did not cover the heels as well either

You can see the freshly rasped heels outside of the shell. Too short

Her tail got in the way, but I barely got the captivator up and over the heels although that is probably due to the short length of the shell itself. I like how streamlined the Vipers are and hope a size larger would work to keep these captivators. 

Since the rain had stopped I could now venture outside. I decided to run with her along the 1 mile gelding track. This way I could watch how she moved, how the boots functioned and be safely out of the way if she decided to freak out. We headed down the hill at a jog and she was honestly hesitant at first. Once we made it down the hill, she decided she could move just fine and really reached out. I mean like full heel first landing and fully extending. Like running past me. Like breaking into a canter for the first time on the lead line during a run with me. She LOVED her new foot wear.

They made a flip floppy sound. I have read FB comments about this and didn't stress over it. I made another mental note. Man, these questions were starting to add up.

We made it the mile without me fainting and Gem was drenched even with so little exertion. Jogging in this weather is serious hard work. Somewhere along the way I had the brilliant idea to try the fronts on her hinds since they are just one size up. They have the other captivator as well. Once back at the barn I took them off and tried them on her hinds. They fit very well.

Much better coverage of the heels with this size. Please ignore the dirt in the tread.  This is the room available with the captivators in place. 

Another view of the space between captivator and shell

See how the pad touched the shell once the foot is down? I couldn't keep the captivators up where I wanted them.

The pastern strap and toe strap fit much better on the hinds. 

We didn't go hard, fast or long enough to really get an idea of how they would rub her if at all in the heel bulbs. I was surprised to see a nice well defined linear scuff mark along the entire top edge of the boot on her hoof wall. Not deep, but I do wonder what it would be like 50 miles later. I made note to ask if this was due to a too tight toe strap, too loose or what.

I didn't have it in me to run her around with just hinds on. For some reason I didn't mind just fronts but found the idea of just hinds to be odd. Maybe I should have.

Anyway...it was clear Gem loved the boots on her fronts. I am going to do all I can to make these work out for her. Their service is stellar, so hopefully all my millions of questions and pictures get to them in the morning and they have some simple solutions. I will have to mail the backs back and will see if they also need the fronts to make changes or if everything I was worried about can be adjusted on these shells. Hopefully I can tweak these and keep them for a longer trail ride on the weekend when the temps are dropping into the mid 80s and I can get a good work out in early Sunday morning.

Cross your fingers for us!!

** Edited on Thursday. Ashley got in touch with me very quickly with responses to my questions. Everything is either due to a) the cables being too tight or b) the boot being too narrow. Or I guess c) both. I lengthened the cables and will try them out on her again tonight at the barn. She also agreed that the hinds were too short and to go with the front size on her hinds, but with the next size up Viper captivator on it.

If the fronts work with just lengthening, I will return the hinds for large size shell and caps. If the fronts end up being too narrow, I need to see if I should just keep the shells for the hinds and order new caps and how hard those are to replace versus just sending all 4 back and getting different everything.

Tonight will be telling. If I can get them sent back tomorrow I can then get new ones back in my grubby little hands before the Holiday weekend so I can still test them out over longer rides. After next weekend Gem starts her taper for WV.**

How Not To Trim Your Mare

1.) Decide to do it at 5 pm when it is 100F (literally) with high humidity

2.) Leave barn clothes in your car all day in the sun

3.) Pull on hot breeches and scald your legs in the process. Curse yourself for being too lazy to bring them inside the air conditioned building

4.) Realize you forgot water

5.) Grab horse and put in crossties and get to work. Become a sweaty mess within minutes and no longer be able to see due to all the sweat running into your eyes.

6.) Hear distant thunder

7.) Continue trimming as a thunder storm rolls over head and rain starts to pound the metal roof

8.) Praise Gem for being the wonderful mare that she is and not being fazed by it all

9.) Drink copious amounts of water from the barn hose then have the BO tell you the pipe is lead lined and to drink from the other spigot

10) Notice that the rain dropped the temperature about 10-15 degrees and smile

11) 10 minutes later realize that the humidity has just sky rocketed and it is hotter than ever

12) Finish up some amazingly long time later, completely soaked through with sweat with a drenched mare and still have boot fitting to get done

13) Hug your horse a million times

Its Not You...No..Wait...It Is You

It is probably all my fault. I jinxed it by pre writing a lovely blog post about how awesome Gem's feet now fit the Gloves and yada...yada..yada. Never do that.

(WARNING: This post has a ton of probably boring hoof pictures. I put them all at the end so you can avoid them if you wish, but I will still have the ability to look back through them for comparison in the future)

Let's back up.

Lady Farrier had been out two weeks prior and I had no interest in having her out ever again. Thanks to Liz over at In Omnia Paratus  I felt empowered to do the rasping every other week myself. This past Saturday saw me hunched over rasping away at her while cursing the heat and humidity. Thankfully I took Liz's advice and had on work gloves. Unlike some man in my life who told me "If I hit my hand instead of his hoof I deserve to get hurt" Well, wouldn't you know it he had big bloody abrasions all over his thumbs when he did Pete. Sometimes a man just has to learn the hard way. I was actually very proud of the job I did and felt confident enough to work on her for the foreseeable future.

By the time I was finished I had zero tolerance to mess with boots, so I put it off until Sunday after our ride. Well, then Sunday was hot and I was tired and had a headache and still had zero tolerance for messing with boots and I put it off until Tuesday night. Come Tuesday, I was ready to go.

I got to the barn and pulled Gem out to see this:

Can we just take a moment to look past the massive wound and focus on her big, shiny, bay butt? That is some serious shine pre grooming and after standing in the heat all day.  Gem is looking fantastic this year.

Ok...I panicked a bit. I mean seriously, that thing is big.  I called Dusty and had him come to the barn with Wyatt to take a look. She was standing evenly and there was no heat or swelling to the leg, but it was obviously tender to the touch. There is no barbed wire on property, so my best guess is that she cut it on the run in shelter in the pasture. Or a nail on a fence post. Or a broken off tree branch. Or any number of things horses find amusing to nearly kill themselves on. Hopefully it will heal quickly and without issue and for now she is still sound.

As I waited for the hubby to arrive, I figured I might as well try on the boots. I had thought ahead and just ordered two Fit Kits to give me every size from 00 to 1.5.

All the pretty boots

To avoid dragging this out ad nauseum, I will fast forward through all the fitting attempts, curse words and sweat dripping into my eyes and get to the point:

GLOVES DON'T WORK

At least not for us and not for right now.

The only hoof that left me with confidence was her front right which nicely fit into the size 0.5 with the right amount of torque/mallet work to get it on and the right amount of torque/hoof pick use to get it off. It looked beautiful on her hoof: perfect splaying of the front central V, tight hoof wall match and nicely cupped heel bulbs.

The others just didn't work out. They were all between sizes: the size up fit perfect for length, but was way too easy to get on and off and the size down wouldn't go on right even with all the mallet pounding and twisting I was capable of. When the toe would eventually seat into the boot, it was obvious that the length was just too short for her hoof.

I've read enough articles/blogs/FB posts on Gloves to know my options. I could get the size up and get power straps to tighten the width. I could try the wide sizes. I could mummify her hoof in Mueller tape then apply the larger size boot. Yes, I could do any or all of those things. But you know what? I don't want to.

It goes against my #1 rule when it comes to Gem and horses in general: Keep it Simple.

All those things above add a layer of complexity and annoyance that I have no interest in doing. If it takes me an hour to tack up my horse, I'm doing it wrong.

Gem's hoof shape is vastly improved from the first time I tried the Gloves, but they still aren't perfect and the Gloves require damn near perfection to work. Easy Care is perfectly upfront about that too. They either fit or they don't. Maybe in a year when she has a brand new hoof capsule grown out they will work. But not now.

If I didn't have WV or TN coming up I would just wait and keep riding and trimming until her hoof was the perfect shape for the Gloves and try again. But I have WV and TN coming up and have no time for that. So...plan B it is.

Renegades.

I've always loved the Renegades although that is mostly due to the pretty colors they come in. The reason they were not my plan A is that there are too many parts to them. The Glove is a simple shell. No moving parts. No cables. No wires. Simple. See, I really do like to follow my #1 rule.

The Renegades have the shell, then a heel captivator that is attached with cables and screws and Velcro. All parts that can break. The Renegades, however, also have wiggle room. Yes, they need to fit and perhaps they won't right now either, but they don't need to fit quite so perfectly.

Of course this means measuring again. Which I suck at. So I decided to avoid that and take a picture of the hoof with the tape measurer applied. I'll let Renegade help. I am waiting to call them and speak with them personally about boot fit and where to send my pictures to for help. Hopefully they will have some positive words for me and I can get these things ordered in time to condition in them before WV. 

Photo Dump Time:

Front Right:

Left Front:

Right Hind:

Left Hind: