Heated Tapaderos
Keeping your feet warm in the saddle
The problem
Every equestrian knows the intense pain of extremely cold feet. Whether you’re a working cowboy, a hunter/outfitter, a trail rider, a mounted law-enforcement officer, or a horse trainer, you know that cowboy boots don’t keep your feet very warm! Especially if your feet get wet from sweat or snow, your feet can become painfully cold, fast. And thick socks or heated inserts don’t fit inside your snug cowboy boots.
That’s why we invented Saddle Slippers.
The solution
Saddle Slippers are patent pending, actively-heated tapaderos. They attach to your existing stirrups and keep your feet warm and dry no matter the outside temperature. Saddle Slippers use heating elements powered by a USB-C rechargeable, on-board power pack, to convectively heat the airspace around your boots.
With Saddle Slippers, you can wear the same boots and socks you wear in the summer, all year. No need for thick socks, insulated boots or bulky heated inserts.
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The science
(You can trust this science)
Before launching Saddle Slippers, we wanted to know if they would keep our own feet warm! So we did a series of tests. Fortunately, we had several extremely cold Colorado days right at the beginning, so I rode my horses with my prototype pairs, and they worked great.
But testimonial proof is only so good, I wanted to prove scientifically that Saddle Slippers work.
My first test simply involved water bottles. I took 2 cowboy boots and stuffed a water bottle into the toe of each boot, then I stuffed a t-shirt above that to stop outside air from interfering, just like your foot/leg would block air. I then placed both boots plus a stand-alone water bottle on a table outside one afternoon where the overnight low was projected to be in the single digits (F). I plugged in the heat pads to a USB outlet so that it had continuous power overnight. Within an hour or two, the stand-alone water bottle had frozen solid. Both of the water bottles inside the boots were still liquid. I left them overnight and eagerly checked again them again the next morning. Both the stand-alone bottle and the bottle inside the cowboy boot without the Saddle Slipper were frozen, BUT the water bottle inside the boot inside the Saddle Slipper was completely liquid!
Obviously this test was a resounding success, but I still wondered how much of the warmth was due to simply being inside an extra layer of insulation vs how much was due to the active heating from the heat pads? The morning was starting to warm up in the sunshine, but the air temp was still low double digits, so I unplugged the Saddle Slipper thereby turning off the heat pads, and let the three scenarios continue to run for another couple of hours. And that’s what really shocked me; the bottle inside the boot inside the Saddle Slipper froze within a few hours of the heat pads being turned off.
That last part of the test is what showed me that the active heating really is the key to how well this product works. Of course, the silver-backed canvas lining to reflect and trap all the heat is important too, but it’s that active heat source that makes your feet so warm and comfortable in Saddle Slippers.
After these successful water-bottle tests, I wanted more specific data to test different materials. So I bought a 3-pack of small thermometers and a base station that showed all the data. I ran multiple tests using different heat sources and different types of reflective materials. All of that research led to the Saddle Slippers available for purchase today.
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The biology
Did you know “cold feet” really is different from other parts of your body getting cold? The feet have some unique characteristics. Once you understand these, you realize just how important keeping your feet warm is.
The bottoms of your feet in particular are specially-designed to be thermoeffectors and thermosensors. This means they not only exchange heat with the surrounding environment very efficiently, they also communicate strongly to the brain if they’re cold. Without Saddle Slippers, the bottom of a rider’s foot is a few millimeters of leather away from the cold wind. No wonder our feet get so cold in the saddle!
Now when your feet tell your brain that they’re cold, your brain automatically decreases circulation to your extremities. In other words, your cold feet are actually making your hands less useful due to decreased blood flow! And it’s a death spiral from there. The decreased circulation to all extremities means your feet keep getting colder and as your feet get colder they keep yelling at your brain to shut off even more blood supply! Eventually, if you try to tough it out long enough, your feet will literally begin to both freeze and die from lack of oxygenated blood. This is what’s known as frostbite.
And it all could have been avoided with a simple pair of Saddle Slippers. Saddle Slippers actively warm your feet from the moment your foot slides in the stirrup. Since your foot never starts down the cold path, it never tells your brain to shut off blood flow. Your hands stay warmer, your feet stay warmer, even your core will stay warmer as the blood flow returning from your feet isn’t cold.