The Barefoot in heavy-duty use! ;-)

Dear Barefoot team,

It’s been a while now since I purchased a saddle from you. We both are completely satisfied with it!!!

Last October, my colleague and me spent a week in the French Jura. Of course I took my Barefoot along. (a little tip, the pad is a bit too short to use with saddle bags, the bags slip over the edge, onto the horses’ back, so I had to resort to a well-padded western blanket. How about developing a pad for this purpose?) Comment by Barefoot: We offer since some time a special Endurance-pad system, with extensions for saddle bags – it’s available for all saddle models.

The weather was great, the terrain too.
On Tuesday morning, I still remember it as if it was yesterday, we started on our long-awaited trail ride of four hours, not including lunch break. We received detailed directions – but all in French! Wonderful!
Everything went according to plan, until noon. We spent our lunch break at a beautiful lake. We felt like we were in a fairytale. (Nobody found it funny that this lake was not mentioned in our directions..). The view was awesome!
In great spirits we rode on, chatting away, always just ambling along, down the trail. We passed huge herds of horses and cows. It took quite a while until we noticed that we, bluntly speaking, were hopelessly lost. We had been in the saddle for three hours, and turning around was out of the question, since this would have meant another three hours riding. At least we knew the general direction. This was correct, but all trails petered out somewhere in the bush, and even a trail-smart Haflinger couldn’t penetrate this dense brush.

At long last, we found an isolated farm. The woman allowed us to cut through her pasture, then we would find the right trail. We were so grateful to her, because by now our 4 hours were up, and our spirits flagging. Okay, so there were horses in this pasture – so far, no free roaming horse had harmed us…. Oh well, there were only three horses in this pasture – 3 year old stallions! And my mare? She was in heat! Never in my life had I run so fast!
After 6 ½ hours we were finally back. Unfortunately, we had to break off our holiday then, because my colleagues’ horse had developed a slight girth sore (she had used a conventional saddle with a tree). My horse with its Barefoot had gotten through this trip without any problems! If somebody didn’t believe in the Barefoot 110 % until now, I had it on the horse for 7 hours, sometimes under very tough conditions. My horse wore it without any problems from start to finish.
The Barefoot passed the extreme heavy duty test!

P.S. To all would-be trail riders like us, please don’t head out without an accurate map, compass, and the phone number for the air rescue in your pocket! J.

Yours truly,
Mirjam