Boot Fitting.... again

Take two on trying to fit into my old amazing Cavallo boots. I've had them since I was a young rider and they are still in great condition. I brought them to the leather/shoe guy to have them stretched and have zippers put in them since my calves are not the svelte size they were when I was riding professionally, over 8 hours a day. Since the boots mean a lot to me and I didn't want him to mess them up, I stressed that I did not want him to over stretch them, but just stretch them a little and put the zippers in. Well, apparently this meant to the great shoe guy... don't stretch them at all and just put the zippers in. Which is just GREAT because once you put the zippers in, you can't stretch them. Well, I guess, you can't forcefully stretch them. You can sit in your couch and force them on your legs for hours at a time and try to stretch the leather out. So... welcome to my life now. The first few tries I wasn't even able to get the zippers up all the way, but now I can. As you can tell from the photo of my poor leg, that's what happened after quite a few hours of having the boot on over my sock (no pants yet). From left to right the marks are: edge of boot, zipper pull, edge of boot and snap that goes over the zipper. *Youch!*
I just hope that it gets better by show season! I guess I've got some work to do...