Renegade Hoof Boot News

I rode my Appendix Quarter horse mare, Savannah, July 3rd at the Mendocino Magic 50 mile ride with 52 riders starting. This ride is located on private property overlooking the Ocean about 10 miles north of Fort Bragg, California. This is a beautiful and hilly ride through Redwoods and creeks with a cooling marine layer keeping horses and riders cool in the morning. Savannah was wearing size 2 glue-on boots on the hinds and on the fronts, she was wearing size 2W Renegade strap-ons. The boots kept Savannah comfortable and fast to a 9th place finish.

On August 7th, I rode Savannah in the Fireworks 50 mile ride in Santa Cruz, California with 57 riders starting. This ride is similar in that it also overlooked the Ocean with a cooling marine layer in the morning, was hilly, and had creek crossings through redwoods. For this ride, Savannah was wearing glue-ons all around. Her hind boots were previously used at the Mendocino Magic ride. I and Dennis Tracy were leading this ride through roughly the half-way point when we missed a turn that resulted in both of us taking an extra 4 mile loop and I finished in 9th place. I sure would have liked that 4 miles back as Savannah scored high in the Best Condition competition!

Gordon Frazier
Auburn, CA

These riders look like they are having a great time! There are excellent awards for anyone riding both days at Pink Flamingo - either distance on any horse. Mesh and fleece horse coolers this year! The Pink Flamingo is a beautiful mountain ride, great trails and beautiful scenery. The trails are different both days. Ride camp is decorated with the Pink Flamingo theme and there are awards for camp decorations and costumes. There are also prizes for finding hidden pink flamingos on the trail and mid-pack awards along with standard BC, top ten and high vet score A raffle and part of the ride entry fees go to support breast cancer research A real fun ride! Photos by Steve Bradley.

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Just finished a 5 day trip in the Eagle Cap Wilderness in Oregon. I wanted to let you know that our horses have been barefoot for about 6 years now. We have tried many other boots, including the most famous ones, with limited success. There was always something broken, something torn, something that needed to be replaced. The boots simply could not withstand the terrain we ride on. On top of that, they were very difficult to put on. We have been using the Renegade Boots for two years now, and have had much better results. In fact, I have not had to repair or replace anything yet! This is a photo of Apache at Slick Rock Creek, on the Hurricane Creek Trail. He is a happy horse, having a good time, and I am happy to have finally found a hoof boot that works. Thank you!

Dave Lindholm-Oregon, USA

I had a wonderful ride at Cooley Ranch, which is a 19,000 acre ranch that is much of the watershed serving Lake Sonoma in Northern California. The ranch is just covered with big Oaks, green grass, and creeks. We crossed a creek almost every few minutes! Ride Managers, Cynthia Ariosta, and Forrest Tancer did a wonderful job organizing the ride. The “50″ had 71 riders and the 25 had 31 riders.

I rode Instant Kharma (Savannah, Appendix-Quarter horse) in Renegades and she finished strongly, constantly passing other horses and we finished 10th. I was very impressed with how strong she finished considering all the steep hills(my GPS showed over 4000 feet) and also that I had not ridden her more than a few times since last fall as I was not even planning to ride this horse this year but my thoroughbred just wasn’t ready. Savannah is a “hot” horse. There’s no need for an acclerator, only brakes are needed. In order to move at a more “sane” pace at the start, we walked up to the start a few minutes late after all the horses were gone. It worked pretty well as she was not exactly relaxed, but certainly not nuts as in the past. Last year at the Mt. Diablo 50, I tried riding her with the front runners but was concerned about the pace at the start and tried to slow her down. Well, she was not going to let those other horses leave her so she dumped me, left me, and passed the front runners! It was 1hr and 10 minutes later that I joined up with her again when another rider, Terry Reilly- riding Mustang Sally, found her on the trail on her way back to camp and ponied her to me.

Thanks Gina & Kirt for the excellent technical assistance with the Renegade glue-ons and strap-ons. I’m glad that we made the transition (winter 2008/2009) to barefoot/boots.

Gordon Frazier
Auburn, CA

Hello, I thought I’d share some photos of Renegades in use at our branding up here in the Interior of British Columbia, Canada. Hoof boots are foreign to the ranching community; I haven’t seen or heard of anyone else roping or riding the range with hoof boots.

I have had them for a couple months now to use on our 1000 head cattle ranch and have been really happy with my Renegades. I only have one horse in them due to hoof issues we have been working on. She is staying sound now that we have been using Renegades.

I plan to convert my other horses to boots when I can afford to. The boots are wearing well and do not rub my horse at all. I have galloped at high speeds chasing cattle, gone through mud, creeks, rocks, over logs and thick blowdown, etc without them moving.

They have only come off in a couple occasions from my horse over reaching at high speeds, nothing was broken and they stayed around her pastern so I just had to put them back on. I have lost one though from riding through hummocks by a lake shore.

I have yet to find it, but I’m sure my mare must have stepped it off…I can’t expect miracle retention with the terrain my horses see…a shod horse can easily pull a shoe in that stuff too. Nevertheless I am happy with my Renegades and just wanted to let you know! Thank you!

Cheers,

Crystal Grier
Chilco Ranch
Hanceville, BC

Note: Renegade offers a Cutback Option to minimize the possibility for an overreach.

We had a really fantastic ride at the Owyhee Fandango last weekend. I rode Chief 50 miles on Friday and Bo 100 miles on Sunday. Both horses did well. Bo finished the 100 with a 11:48 ride time, in 3rd place! Here are photos from Steve Bradley.

On Friday we rode through a fair amount of mud with several water crossings. I have concluded that Chief no longer needs to use boots with extra padding in them - he is back to being solid footed enough that I will only use regular Renegades on him. The padding makes the boots more slippery so they didn’t stay on very well in those conditions. Lucky for me, Chief is a patient horse and tolerates anything I do to him. Now that I know he can go a mile down the trail barefoot over rocks and not even hint that his boot had come off I guess I really don’t need to try and baby him with extra padding in his boots. The good thing is that once I changed over to the regular Renegade strap-on boots, they stayed on! It was a good learning experience for me.

My luck on the 100 with the Renegade strap ons was better! We had a really super ride. Bo and his Renegades went through the boulder field both times without any slipping, no dings or dents - it was great! We had one O-ring break and that was the extent of it. Not bad! I even went out into the Snake River in the mud a couple of feet and the boots were secure. I pre-rode in the boots the day before and made sure I had them sized and adjusted properly.

Any time this year I’ve had a boot issue it was due to my own inability to pay attention to the fit and adjustments that sometimes need to be monitored and changes made. I’m still learning!

I’m happy with how well the boots have been working for my horses this season. Bo has been using the strap on versions of the boots exclusively while Chief has used a combination of the glue-ons and the strap-on versions.

Happy trails,
Karen

Dear Renegade -

I’m writing to express my appreciation of both your product and your customer service. I’ve just completed my first 3 day pioneer and I’m exhausted so excuse my inability to put good sentences into decent paragraphs. You may use this letter in whole or in part in anyway you wish. I love your products and refer other riders to your products with no hesitation. This got a bit longer than I anticipated, but it’s because I waited too long to write and now I have too much story to tell!

I’ve used Renegade strap ons since September of 2009 with great success.

I need to define success. Success = I took them out of the box, fitted them by adjusting cables and cutting back when necessary and rode with them, no modifications to the hoof needed.

I completed two 50’s in them problem free, then took them to 20 mule team in February to test their meddle in extremely adverse conditions. 100 miles later in sand, mud, rocks, mucky rainy conditions, I still had my boots. I did have one malfunction - a cable broke at mile 60. It took me less than 30 seconds to jump off my horse, take it off, and replace it with a spare. After completing the ride I looked at my boots - the spare’s velcro straps had come undone - and it was obvious it had been that way for a while. I hadn’t fitted the straps properly under the o-rings, being in a hurry at the checks since I was crew-less and too stupid to ask for help. But the spare boot had stayed on through all those miles, including a canter into the finish.

And then I grew complacent.

How hard was this barefoot thing anyways? Where were all those “problems” everyone else was experiencing?

I entered American River 50 2 months after 20 mule team. My mare’s feet were so good I hadn’t used the boots since 100 mule team and I waited until the night before to drag them out. Mmmm….the boots from the 100 looked a bit…worn. Time to replace them. I slapped on 4 new boots, did some adjustments of the cables and went on my merry way.

I had 40 boot failures in 50 miles. I couldn’t keep the boots on. I was at a loss - how could a boot that had performed so well 2 months ago suddenly just…stop working?

I sent a pleading e-mail to renegade to help me diagnosis my problem - I had thought these boots were Tevis ready and now I was scared. Really really really scared.

Within 5 minutes Renegade’s Gina diagnosed my problem. All of my boot retention problems were due to my carelessness in fitting the second set of boots and my lack of attention to her changing hooves. 3 of the 4 boots needed to be sized up and fitted accordingly and the 4th needed to be cut back like my first set was!

I refitted a set of strap ons and prepared for the Wild West 3 day Pioneer.

But American River spooked me. I couldn’t handle 3 days of what I experienced at American River. I decided to try Renegade glue ons so I could have experience with both glue ons and strap ons before Tevis.

I carefully watched Renegade glue on videos and set out to duplicate the process. It went…..OK. It was a lot of work. I decided I really liked the strap ons and wouldn’t glue more than once or twice a year for big races. Hopefully I had done well enough they stayed on…..

Because of the weather forecasts, I glued on boots on Tuesday for a Friday/Saturday/Sunday race. It rained and rained and rained starting Tuesday night. It snowed Thursday night. Friday was a mucky muddy snowy slick awful day. The boots stayed on and my mare had excellent traction. The trails dried out for Saturday and Sunday and I continued to put in the miles. On Sunday I lost a boot. It was the first one I glued on and I think my lack of experience gluing and the rain/mud/snow for a week finally took it’s toll. I put a strap on on for the last 30 mile loop and crossed my fingers. Would it stay on? I told my riding partners that I was giving the boot one shot - the first time it came off on the trail it was staying off and spending the rest of the ride on my breast collar. I was NOT stopping every 10 minutes like American river to fiddle with boots!

That 30 mile loop had knee deep water, slick mud, rocks, down hill, uphill, sucking boggy mud, hardpacked dirt and soft single track. And the boot stayed on. The entire time. Without me having to touch it once. I’m GLAD I lost that glue on because it has restored my faith in my strap ons! GO RENEGADES! Obviously…..sizing is important!

So here I am on the heels of my first 100 mile completion in strap ons, and my first pioneer completion in glue ons (and spare). I think I’ve decided to do Tevis in Glue ons just because my crew isn’t experienced in boots and I won’t be able to maintain strap ons AND take care of myself, but I have my eye on continuing to use strap ons for all my other races, including 100’s. I couldn’t be happier with the product or your customer service. THANK YOU.

I’ve attached a picture of me at day one from Wild West, the pioneer I did over the weekend. It was my first time riding in the snow and it was wonderful to not be in shoes. Quite a few shod horses were taking it easy because of snow balls in the shoes, but my Renegades gave me the protection to go over snow and rocks without fear. I rode to a top 10 placing on the third day, to place 2nd overall over the 3 days.

Melinda Faubel

PS photo is by Bill Gore

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