How Not to Fit Easyboot Gloves!

Primrose Hill, our little barefoot ambassador is growing up fast, and we have been trying to get her out and about in the forest to get used to the great outdoors before she starts to be ridden in the spring when she turns 4. Unfortunately, with the bad weather we have not been able to get out as much and coupled with the enforced confinement to the yard she had to endure for 6 weeks due to an injury to her hoof, it has meant that she is starting to feel the stones on the tracks when we take her out. We decided to introduce her to hoof boots to help improve her feet (as we can use the comfort pads which have great therapeutic value) and protect them from the sharp stones so as not to ruin her confidence and enthusiasm for going for walks. Being young, she is not he most patient of young ladies, (although she is generally very polite!) so it was an interesting experiment to make a compromise with her boot fit.
The Easyboot Glove is my personally boot of choice, and her feet are luckily a good shape for them. Her front measure 110mm x 110mm, which put her between a 00 and a 0. Using the fitkit, I determined that the 00.5 was as small as she could go, but with pads in the boots they were a little trickier to get on so a compromise was made and a size 0 was used. Now, as you can see from the picture, they are gappy and even the gaiter is loose! They do not grip the wall as tight as I would like, and there is a clear channel at the front of the boot but much to my surprise, they have not moved an inch during our outings! I must make it clear that we are only walking and trotting in hand for no more than an hour, and she does have straight movement which I am sure helps, but there have been a few 'merry moments' along the way which I would have expected to cause a problem! She is about ready to go down into a smaller size now as she is used to having the boots applied, but I thought it was interesting to see and testament to the superb design of the boots that even when they were incorrect size they would cope with a basic amount of work. Of course we don't advise that the boots be fitted like this for riding, but it does support the idea that a well fitting glue on hoof boot (without the glue!) can be used to lead horses to and from the field, or to an arena and back for example and be used a bit like a very quick and easy 'slipper'.