A wet marquee, a bar of Cadbury's, and a lot of boots that didn't fit

Back in 2007, we were doing what most weekends looked like then: standing in a marquee at a country show, in the rain, selling other people's riding boots. None of them seemed to fit anybody properly.

One particularly soggy Saturday, a rider ducked in more for shelter than shopping. We tried her in everything on the table. Nothing worked — the fit was wrong somewhere on every single pair.

That evening in the horsebox, listening to the rain on the roof and sharing a bar of Cadbury's, Emma said what everyone in the trade already knew: riders were fighting this same battle everywhere, and nobody was designing boots with an actual calf in mind. If we were going to do this, the fit had to come first.

A year on, same field, same rain — she came back. This time we had our own boots to show her. They fit. She's been back most years since.

That's the honest reason Bareback exists: somebody needed boots that actually fit, and nobody else was making them.

— Emma