Chaballo team member Millie Treloar discusses her experience with the DeNiro Salento Boots:
Finding competition horse riding tall boots that look great and are comfortable for each phase of eventing is difficult because they may be too tall and stiff for jumping but too short and soft for dressage. After trying a few different styles of the DeNiro range, I decided on custom Salentos with ‘Cocco Patent’ on the top and heel. These were the best style for me because the soft leather enabled me to go for a taller style to look elegant in the dressage arena but not rub the back of my knees for show jumping and cross country.
I wanted some sort of ‘bling’ on the boots but finding the perfect type from their wide variety was difficult as there were so many that I loved. I went with the ‘Cocco Patent’ because it had the shininess that I wanted but the texture gave it a classy finish instead of plain patent.
Something that stood out to me as soon as I put the boots on were the strong zips. I’ve had many problems with zips on other brands of top boots due to the way that they were fitted and the zips themselves being weak; but when my Salentos were fitted it was ensured that there was enough space, so the zips didn’t have constant pressure on the stitching. Whereas other boots have been fitted too small or with poor quality zips resulting in them falling down or breaking.
They were easy to break in and wear because they weren’t stiff and didn’t need to soften very much as they were already so soft, compared to other brands which took a long time to break in because the leather was stiff, and I always had rubs and blisters for the first few weeks.
