The county park district I lesson at has upwards of 40 horses, all of whom go English and western. Since we had extra hands today on daily chores, I grabbed a few western pads and rubber and steel curry combs and figured I’d do a little cleaning.
Some pads were pretty clean and just needed a two minute brush out, but more were Yeesh! Flat hard and stiff with dirt and sweat built up like armor plate till you couldn’t see the color of the initial fleece. Two weren’t hard over the flank quarters, but had - no kidding - nearly a half inch of horse hair built up hard packed til it resembled a shim! It took well over a half hour to clean one of those from a very fuzzy grey pony using the curries.
Clean hair in a no pressure spot I could live with, but hard dirt and sweat has to go and that’s my personal project for the next while. With pads that are absolutely plaqued solid with sweat and dirt, what’s the best cool weather technique to clean them? Soaking them in a trough and working them with a brush till the plaque liquifies is way to cold, and we can’t wait several days for the pads to dry. Does anyone have other methods that work faster/ less likely to give my hands blisters? These aren’t sheepskin, just felt and fleece with leather wear patches.