Part of the fun when going to major competitions involves visiting the trade fair to see what’s new and unusual. That’s how I discovered Nicola Schulten’s take on boots. What attracted me was seeing how she designed a way for spurs to in effect be buttoned onto the back of the boot.
A unique way of adding a spur to a boot. (Photo © 2023 by Nancy Jaffer)
“I was really frustrated with my spurs flopping up and down and having very tight straps over my insteps and having the circulation cut off on my feet,” she told me when we met at the MARS Maryland 5-star.
“So I decided as a shoe designer and a rider, I ought to be able to solve this problem. We are not breeding our horses the same or wearing the same clothes as we did 100 years ago. So why should we be wearing still the same shoes that we were wearing 100 years ago?”
The veteran of 30 years in the shoe business undertook “a complete rebuild of a boot with more of an athletic construction method around the front, a lot of support on the back in the heel area and a lot of shock absorption on the sole.”
There’s also a shock-absorbing footbed inside the boot “that’s really energizing to wear. It’s much much more comfortable to jump off your horse in something that actually has shock absorption built all the way through it” rather than the usual thermo-plastic rubber, she said.
Any spurs on the market fit into the pockets on the sides of the heel. There are also two holes for adjusting the height of the spur.
She moved the zipper to the inside, “so the flexing is going on in the middle of the ankle.”
The part of the boot that goes against the saddle can be faced in suede, but overall “there are three layers of leather protection between you and your stirrup leathers,” Nicola advised.
They include a lining for sheepskin from India “so it has that natural quality that Indian sheep tend to have.” Between that and the leather exterior, there is a compressed layer of pigskin.
When the boot is worn by people with cerebral palsy, “they are now able to canter because they have more support,” Nicola said, adding other customers are riders with muscles missing, hammer toes, bone spurs and bunions. It struck me that para riders might benefit from these boots.
“The more I know about what’s going on with them, the more I can build into their boots,” the native of Great Britain said about her customers.
All boots are custom and start at $2,400 for the tall boots, and $800 for paddock boots.
Her business in Grand Rapids, Mich., The Impeccable Equerry, offers a variety of interesting products, including half-chaps.
I enjoy meeting entrepreneurs with original ideas, so that’s why I wanted to share the word about Nicola’s products when I spotted them.