James Arkins named Scoot Boot Brand Ambassador

Image: James Arkins riding 18-year-old Rosthwaite Vigilante in Scoot Boots.

Show jumper James Arkins knows what it takes to prepare a horse for success at the elite level. In 2022, he competed for Australia with stallion Eurostar at the FEI World Championships and more recently he’s travelled to Europe with his new team of horses to help them gain experience and work towards future team representation.

Earlier this year, James also began transitioning some of his team to barefoot with the help of award-winning horse boot company Scoot Boot.

“I’m now a Brand Ambassador for Scoot Boot,” says James. “I came on board just before leaving Australia in January, so that’s a very exciting partnership and they’re a very interesting brand.”

Knowing the value of their product for performance horses and wanting to get an elite show jumper on board, Scoot Boot approached James.

“I’d noticed a lot of the top show jumpers around the world had gone barefoot with some of their horses and were using Scoot Boots. It was something that had really caught my attention over the last few years, watching the trend that’s been forming in Europe [in fact, two out of three horses on the gold medal-winning Swedish jumping team were barefoot at the Tokyo Olympics]. I was definitely interested to know more… it just went from there, really,” explains James.

One of the first horses James tried barefoot with Scoot Boots was Rosthwaite Vigilante, a horse whom he competed with in Europe and was ultimately shortlisted for the 2016 Rio Olympics.

“When he came back to Australia, he was not quite the same horse so he subsequently retired,” explains James. “We recently brought him back into work for one of my students at home to get experience on… we put him in Scoot Boots, and he couldn’t have been sounder. That was very impressive to see. He’s 18 and had been out of work for quite some time; the boots really helped him.”

Scoot Boots are suitable for elite performance horses.

Seeing the difference Scoot Boots made for Rosthwaite Vigilante meant James was soon trying them with some of his elite performance team.

“I’ve used them quite a bit with my rising eight-year-old Belgian Warmblood stallion, Quint Horta,” he explains. Quint Horta is currently in Europe with James and is going from strength to strength. Could we see James and his stallion in their Scoot Boots at a future Olympics or World Championships? The sky is the limit!

Named Australian e-Commerce Exporter of the Year, Scoot Boot is a world-leading hoof boot company designed by a farrier. Allowing free and natural movement across all terrain for the barefoot horse, their use is growing in popularity amongst performance riders.

To find out more about Scoot Boots and how they can be used for performance horses, visit the Scoot Boot website.

This article was written in conjunction with Scoot Boot.