Retail

Entrepreneur of the Year 2024: Carole Herder is taking big steps with Cavallo Horse & Rider

Cavallo Horse & Rider’s innovative designs are a step up from traditional nails and metal horseshoes

By Nathan Caddell /

THE KICKOFF: Carole Herder had a successful children’s fashion business before she followed her true passion: horses. She left Vancouver in 1993 and moved to Roberts Creek, where she took up horse riding. When her first horse died at only 12 years old, she set out to make things better.

In particular, she thought something needed to be done about the age-old practice of protecting horses’ hooves by nailing metal into them. In 2004, she incorporated Cavallo Horse & Rider and began developing a hoof boot that provided safety and traction and was easy to put on and take off.

She took her product to some farriers (people who specialize in hoof care), thinking they would marvel at what she’d done. “I was ridiculed and ostracized,” she recalls. “I almost went back to Roberts Creek with my tail between my legs. But it made me more committed.”

ACTION PLAN: Retailers didn’t want to stock an unproven product, so Herder took her show on the road. “I went to the horse shows—I drove around and stood in parking lots with moulds of the product in my hand and explained to people that the nailing of metal shoes was creating all kinds of problems for horses’ feet,” she says. “And they understood, because their horses had suffered these issues and they felt hopeless about what to do.”

One by one, riders started buying into Herder’s innovation. “Recreational trail riders, they love their horses, they’re part of their families,” she says. “When they tried it and discovered it worked, they talked to their friends and it just started spreading.”

CLOSING STATEMENT: Cavallo has eight employees and distribution centres all over the world, and is, in Herder’s words, “number one in the industry.” The company just signed a deal with Continental AG, the Hanover-based automotive manufacturing giant, to put sensors in the bottom of its boots that can diagnose and predict lameness.