As I hefted it and tested its feel and balance I started mentally comparing it to various hoofpicks I have known over a long lifetime of horses.
You know, like ones bent from a long skinny rod, curved around into a handle and a hammered flat hook. The ones that are hard to get a grip on without cramping. Not to mention it seemed like they were always snagging on something and threatening to pop out of your hand. Try digging out a lodged stone, mud pack or ice clump with one of those. Oh, sure, you work at it and you'll eventually get it chipped out, but forget trying to pry it out because it ain't happening easily.
If you were doctoring a sole, like treating thrush, it always seemed like those things were too wide to get really get down into those cracks and crevices where all that nasty stinky stuff was hiding.
And that's on a unshod hoof.
Try doing a super clean on a shod hoof, thrush bacteria lives in the shoe crease too. The shoe crease is where the nails go through
And you can plain forget even thinking about cleaning that shelf area between shoe and sole. It ain't happening easy. Chances are pretty good you'll work up a sweat and a muscle cramp or two.
By the time you do a hoof or two your hand is screaming. Then you either rush through the other hooves or you grab a pair of gloves.
Oh, yeah, as if those pieces of bent rod are glove friendly.
The glove friendly ones, the ones with the smooth plastic handle, are some better to hold on to but what little you gain in grip you lose in the hook. That hook isn't even round, it's flat spring steel. Springs do what? They give. That's why they are called springs.
But you know what?
I used those barely usable hoofpicks for many years.
Oh, I knew those hoofpicks were a pain to use. But I just accepted them for what they were. Uncomfortable to use and about the best you could hope for.
Until I held the new pick in my hand the other day I never knew I was picking hooves with one hand tied behind my back. Figuratively speaking.
Look at that thing!
It may be nice to look at, made one at a time by hand and artsy enough to hang in your living room (rustic is always in style for horse lovers) but it'll do to ride the river with. It will clean hooves so well you'll toss all your other hoofpicks in the trash.
It's solid mild steel! The same metal as a horse shoe. Because it's made from a horse shoe! It is indestructible as long as you don't drop it in a forge. Your horse can step on it, your truck can drive over it, heck, for the final trial by fire, it'll even survive your kids!
Since it is made from a horse shoe there is no give or spring there. When you pull either of the back to back picks across the sole of the hoof, all of the energy goes into removing the crud and not into any spring action or twisting.
It's got a solid, grippable handle. No slipping! The uniquely twisted handle fits the hand securely with all the grip of a tire meeting the road. Bare hands or gloves, makes no difference to this baby. Good grip means good control.
It's got two, count them, two, back to back picks to reach every part of the hoof. One pick is narrow enough to reach down into the smallest nook and cranny of the hoof, the other is wide enough to move out the toughest most tightly packed wads of crap and whatever else happens to pack in the hoof.
The neat part about the back to back picks is its incredible prying leverage. You get any part of either pick under an ice ball or any other kind of ball and rock it back onto the other pick and that sucker is coming out!
This hoof pick is an investment in your horse's hoof health. Remember us talking about thrush earlier? About how you need to get the hoof cleaned out so the medicine can do its work? Well, getting after white line disease is another area where this pick shines.
Pony hoof or draft hoof, they are all the same to this 2in1 pick - you won't hear a single whining compliant from it. It doesn't care how big the hoof is.
Not only does the 2in1 make one heck of a hoofpick but it can even make short work of those temper tantrum causing plastic bucket lids. Shoot, hook either of the 2in1 picks under the baler twine and you can even snatch hay bales around with it.
The fit in your hand, the back to back dual purpose picks and the solid steel strength mean less time and less effort to clean a hoof. This combination of features means less discomfort from cramping and straining.
I am so impressed with this 2in1 hoofpick that I think every horse needs an owner who has one. And, all our horses agree!
It didn't take me very long to decide to offer this incredible hoofpick to those who want the very best in horse products.
Trust me, this is one heck of a hoofpick. You won't want to lend it out unless you have one of those bank teller chains on it and even that may not be a good idea.
I believe in this hoofpick so much that I'm offering a stupendous guarantee: Try this hoofpick for 30, 60, 90 days and if you do not think it is the best hoofpick you have seen or used and I'll return the purchase price AND twice your shipping - the shipping you paid to get it AND the shipping you paid to send it back.
In effect, I'm paying to have you test drive it. Work the living daylights out of it and if it fails the test, and even if it doesn't and you just want to send it back, shipping is on me.
Normally, a guarantee like this is only good sense when all you are saying about something is "Trust me, you'll LOVE it!" But because there is little you can do to harm it even if you do 200 hoof cleanings a day for 20 years it is no skin off my fingers to offer "absolutely no cost guarantee" because you won't be returning it.
Heck, once you use it, I'd be lucky to get it away from you with a gun.
The price per pick is $19.95 plus $3.50 postage.
"$22.45 for a hoofpick???" you say.
Now I know that price is at least 10 times more than the price of one of those commonly available less effective ones but this pick is 100 times more pick and will last you for the rest of your life. This is a gift quality, keepsake hoofpick. This will be the last hoofpick you will ever want to buy.
If you want to try one out just send me $22.45 and I'll fire your pick off to you. If you don't like it, and I just can't see that is a possibility, but if by some weird chance it is, just send it back and I'll refund every cent of your money plus I'll pay to have it shipped back to me.
My http://PayPal.com account is: Marv@MarvWalker.com
My address for other forms of payment is:
Marv Walker
1202 Old Agateville Road
Hillsboro, GA 31038
Marv "I'm telling you, this is one heck of a hoofpick." Walker