Holy Mother of BoT

Alright listen.  I have long heard about the benefits of Back on Track products, mostly from Hillary and L. Williams.  I assumed they worked from all the positive reviews, and always figured a pair of hock boots would benefit Mollie.  And even though they probably wouldn't make a huge difference they definitely wouldn't hurt.  So last week I figured it was as good a time as ever to make our purchase, ordered a pair of hock boots, and waited until I got out to the barn today to use them.

Oh.

My.

Gawd.

I'm not sure what sort of magical things are wrapped inside these boots but I was absolutely floored at the difference in my horse.  Mind you she has not been ridden since last Sunday and has not been able to get outside in her field all week (therefore movement is restricted to her 12 foot wide run out attached to her stall.  It was also only 20 degrees.  My horse should have probably come out pretty stiff today.  She didn't.  Because of BoT magic.

I got to the barn and brought her in her stall to put the boots on.  She was basically disappointed they weren't edible, but otherwise had no qualms about me strapping them to her hocks.  I was a little worried that they looked big out of the box but they actually fit perfectly.  Couldn't have asked for a better fit.  I left them on while I got all my tack out, groomed, and tacked her up, and it ended up being exactly half an hour that she wore them.

Brought her into the ring and hopped on and right away I thought she felt extra swingy.  I wasn't ready to accredit it to the boots however, as I figured I was just looking for things to be different.  I was pretty surprised at how quickly she came together however.  She was very agreeable to lifting through her back and shoulders which was much appreciated.  When I picked up the trot she felt about the same.  She actually felt kind of short but she had (finally) gotten her feet done this week, by a different farrier, so I assumed she was just getting used to her hooves.  She quickly opened up her stride though so I wasn't worried.

What absolutely blew me away though was when I asked her to canter.  She literally bounced me up out of the saddle when I asked!! And this is coming from a horse who has pretty "tame" canter transitions.  I seriously felt like her hind end was right underneath me, which was really cool :)  We finished out the ride with lotsssss of counter bend, especially to the right where she likes to dive on her forehand and go around in constant haunches in.  At the very end of my ride I rode an exercise I'll talk about in greater length next week but it was amazing to experience what her body feels like when it is actually straight, not just "straight" that I've become accustomed to (spoiler alert, it's not usually straight at all).

So while it's pretty early to tell if our awesome ride was thanks to the BoT boots alone I'll definitely be using them regularly.  Like tomorrow :)