I know everyone has their own routine…
I would love to hear (in detail) your dailty tack cleaning routine, what products and procedures you use.
Thanks!
Daily? Oye… was just realizing my everyday bridle is at least 15 years old and it might get cleaned monthly… I simply cannot kill it! It’s soft and supple, if dusty.
Im sure if I was a better person I’d wipe it down with a damp cloth daily, when I clean the bit. And give it a weekly conditioning. But I think buying great leather is a better investment. (That doesn’t always mean the most expensive leather of course.)
4 Likes
You’re meant to do it daily? Who knew.
8 Likes
I like how some of the western riders do it. They use synthetic saddles and just power wash the tacked up.horse after the ride. Tack cleaning and cool down in one move.
2 Likes
Our daily tack is Biothane Beta for bridles and breastplates. Girths are wintecs. It just gets hosed off after a ride.
2 Likes
Uggg, daily cleaning is the standard at my new barn. I was getting self conscious having the only filthy bridle (though I’m probably the only one who noticed it), that I started a quick bit dunk and wipe down with a decent leather cleaner (I’ve been using the Belvoir spray - I needed something anti-mold/mildew for summer now that I’m on the East coast). I’m not doing a thorough job, just enough to get the noseband, throatlatch, reins, and anything else that looks gunky. Maybe do the saddle billets also. Condition a few times a year, or whenever.
I wish it was daily but that doesn’t happen.
I wipe with a damp cloth and apply effax lederbalsam maybe once every week or two. Tack is happy and not gummy. I might apply a soap or cleaner maybe once or twice per year but I hate that gummy glycerin feeling so generally stay away.
1 Like
Deteils… you asked for 'em. LOL.
- I don’t clean tack daily. That’s on purpose. The only exception is rinsing off the bit and toweling off so that it’s perfectly clean when hung up. I won’t put a bit with dried spit and nastiness in a horse’s mouth if I can help it.
I want my tack to be soft and have that soft, glowy patina after I have cleaned it. That comes from either glycerine or wax (not oil). AND (one reason I don’t do tack every day), if that shine is all you are looking for and you just use glycerine day after day, you can create leather that is dry on the inside and stiff, even while shiny on the outside. That’s no good in minor and major ways. And there are a helluva lot of people out there who do it this way.
Also, that tack with a rather thick coat of glycerine on it is the stuff that attracts scurf and dirt. So a minute after you put that tack on your horse it looks dull and dirty. Again, you can see this with very expensive tack cared for at very expensive barns. My tack takes a bit longer to attract the haze of dirt and scurf that makes it look dull. Sometimes people think that glycerine and (more usually) daily cleaning is how you get to “soft” tack. Not so! See below about which steps and products create which characteristic of nice tack.
-
I care about the texture, the soft-but-not-too-flappy feel of my tack first. That’s because the “hand” of your leather tells you about the health of the fibers inside-- this is what makes your leather able to withstand tension without breaking or not. It’s functionally the most important question and issue in tack care that there is! So I oil or condition to that standard first. Then I put some kind of glycerine on with a damp sponge at the end to create that soft shine and kind of seal in whatever oil or fat I had going on.
-
I also care about cleaning the leather. Speaking in very general terms, what it takes to get dirt and scurf off leather is also what dries out. That’s true whether you use water, friction, a straight-up grease cutter (ammonia) or a detergent (all soaps are some kind of detergent, some stronger, some weaker). So, for example, I never want the inside of my reins to look or feel like anything but bare, clean fascia-side of leather. I don’t want to see or feel a layer of dirt and scurf that I can scrape with a fingernail.
Given the fact that I want leather that’s soft on the inside and also clean, and the way that “clean” works against “soft” or non-thirsty on the inside, all that leads me to cleaning my tack (including saddles and boots) about once a week.
- I have always thought of cleaning tack as a 3 step process:
– clean dirt and scurf (a form of grease) off
– oil or condition as the inside of the leather suggests it needs it. I think of a “conditioner” as more fat than oil. And there are oils that are more and less viscous. All of this is about molecular size, I think.
– finish with something that seals in that moisture-- like glycerine or, for the outside of boots and shoes, especially, some kind of wax. Usually that’s something like Carnuba wax or whatever is in shoe polish.
So during those weekly cleanings, I do this 3-parter, varying how much I do of each step as the leather and environmental conditions warrant.
- I have discovered recently that the conditioning step and/or versus the sealing step will vary depending on the level of humidity in your area. Basically, this is an oil-vs-humectant issue. Glycerine is quite the humectant. So when I lived in Oregon’s damp Willamette Valley, I found myself wanting less glycerine and more oil or fat in the product I’d use to create a soft shine that did not feel sticky. Now I live in the currently dry Southeast. Here, I want more glycerine and less fat/oil. Various products have different ratios of glycerine to oil in them.
Find the one that pleases your hand (I mean the degree of flappiness your tack needs) and your environment. Of you can mix your own, even in choosing to put two products together on your sponge. Also, glycerine soap comes in varying qualities. IME, the higher the quality the glycerine, the more you get “soft humectant” vs, “sticky coat.”
I have an array of leather care products. I find that different leathers want different products. Sometimes, too, it requires switching up the product I use if I always want to bring a piece of leather up to that soft-glowing-not sticky standard that I have in mind. So I could tell you what products I currently use, but that would be a different, longer discussion and it wouldn’t help unless you, me and a piece of your tack were in your environment.
Hope this helps let me know if I can answer any other questions.
13 Likes
This is a great post! This is basically what I do. I’ve been at barns that clean tack daily and I was ok being the odd one out. I think getting the leather damp that often can be hard on it.
My tack gets done once every week or two. Extra for clinics or shows, or if the horse got super sweaty or if we got rained on.
Tack that doesn’t get uses gets done a couple times per year.
1 Like
Glad I’m not the only one. I’ll bet I’d like your tack.
What’s interesting is that leather getting wet, even “rinsed off” with a very wet sponge comes back OK if you towel it right off; and if it was well-conditioned on the inside of the leather in the first place. Same thing for tack that gets salty wet. I used to fox hunt and the method I described above worked well for my tack, no matter how much of a “war” it was in while out hunting.
1 Like
I do whenever. Not that often. My gear has held up wonderfully. Some of it is 45 years old (was in storage for 20 years though).
Good leather well conditioned doesn’t need to be cleaned every day and the spray on products leave gunk.
The clean everything every day is a holdover from when people had grooms. And harnesses that got filthy on dirt roads.
Also servants worked 12 hour days back then. Or Ionger. Groom was a highly skilled and relatively privileged and autonomous job in England. I’ve often suspected that grooms back then made the job expand to fit the time so they could always look busy and never be called on to go help harvest potatoes.
Along with every piece of tack being cleaned every evening, they used to brush each horse an hour a day. I totally get it. Let you stay in the barn all the time.
I do self board. Most recently I’ve been looking after 3 horses. The priority is feed, ride or longe, clean stalls. If there is time left over I top up the runout paddocks. Go for a grass walk. Then tidy the feed loft or similar. This can be 5 hours easily. Grooming is a once over with a brush and in summer, a hose bath after. Shine cones from good nutrition, brushing doesn’t do that much. Also these are all mares and they dislike it except if they are shedding and itchy.
When I do clean tack I do it properly. If its winter I have to take it home so it dries out and doesn’t go moldy. Wash and scrub with glycerine soap. Let dry. Use Passier Ledersbalm on sades, Belvoir or oil on bridles that pick up scurf if you use sticky Ledersbalm. Let that soak in and settle.
I tried some sprayon saddle soap but it built up and attracted gunk. Maybe people who use the wrong products end up having to clean the product off every day?
I might feel different if I was in a full board barn riding one horse 45 minutes 4 times a week, and standing around wondering what next? Or that plus s new $6000 saddle. Or a heated tack room so freshly washed gear wouldn’t mold up.
1 Like
I wipe down my tack after each use with Higher Standards. I have found that it keeps the leather more supple and I don’t need to condition as often.
After each ride, I clean the bit and use warm water to clean my tack. I guess I am a bit prissy about being uncomfortable because I’m sure if I cleaned my tack with cold water, I’d never do it! I also think the warm water helps loosen the gunk a bit easier as well.
Before shows or when my tack looks like it needs it, I do a full take apart cleaning and conditioning. Maybe 3 times a year not during show season?
What I find just as important is cleaning my boots and the zippers after each use. It does seem to really help the zippers last longer. I will scrub the zippers with a stiff brush and some soap and then wipe them off. Occasionally I with then use a zipper cleaner on them to keep them functioning properly.
1 Like
I Hydrophane all my leather, so a quick bit dip and then a wipe off with a damp cloth does the job.
The only thing I do daily is rinse off the bit, and wipe it dry, after each ride. Other than that, if it’s been a dusty ride that day, I gently wipe off the dust.
I agree that over-cleaning, over-conditioning, over-oiling is neither necessary, nor a particularly good practice, with quality leather.
Interesting to read the differences in tack care.
I’ve been taught that salt and glycerin soap are leather’s biggest enemy, so after every ride my leather girths and bridles go promptly to the wash stall for a hose down. I hang them to drip-dry and use lederbalsam as needed, usually about once a week. If something feels dry I might give it a quick shot of lexol conditioner after the hose down and if something is grimy I’ll wash with a liquid cleaner then rinse and condition.
I usually only wipe my saddles quickly with a damp rag daily then clean and condition every 2 weeks (I’m trying to do it more often but time isnt allowing right now!)
The ONLY time in my life I’ve been able to keep up with daily tack cleaning was in college. The fact that it was expected/required helped, but the reason I could keep it up was because they had the perfect set-up that made it convenient. A large sink in the tack room with hot/cold water. A counter top next to the sink to keep the sponges and soap handy-- they used castile bars and occasionally glycerine bars, and had the nicest wooden holders for both. They had several adjustable height tack hooks close to the sink for hanging bridles and girths while cleaning. In the center of the room, they had a sturdy wooden saddle rack that could hold multiple saddles and was just the right height for cleaning. There were stools around so you could sit while cleaning if you wanted.
I’ve been trying to recreate that set-up for years, but I just don’t have the space. One day…
Meanwhile, tack cleaning happens semi-annually around my farm. Usually it’s spurred by me having some sort of public outing like a show or tack just getting so gross I can’t deal with it anymore. Meh, everything holds up fine.
3 Likes
The only thing I do daily/as needed is wipe off my reins and maybe other pieces of the bridle with a damp towel or sponge, followed by a dry towel. I just don’t like to leave my bridle and reins with sweat on them. The same goes for the inner calf of my boots on occasion.
Otherwise, roughly weekly or as needed based on feel, I follow a 3 step procedure such as the one MVP mentioned.
I often take the bridle home to do a proper disassemble with thorough cleaning and conditioning.
I clean my tack after every ride. How I clean it depends on the weather/ring conditions ect. If it was just a quick ride, not major dust or anything, I will clean the bit, then wipe down my tack with a dry microfiber cloth. If it was muddy/wet (in bad weather I ride in a waterproof saddle cover) or if I notice any dirt/scratches/ect I will then just use a tack cleaner spray. Ill wet my sponge, then squeeze as much water out of it, then add a little spray onto the sponge and use that to clean my tack, and I wipe everything down with a dry cloth to pick up any extra moisture. If I am finding my tack less supple, or a couple days before a show I will condition it, I like to use a teeny tiny bit of neats foot oil .
Also, in the middle of winter (when no one is really riding as its -40) the barn gets together for a Tack Cleaning Party. We will disassemble clean and condition bridles. It was also a great time to learn the different pieces, and we would always have competitions on who could put it back together the fastest blindfolded.
I am such a slacker, the barn I’m at now it looks like everyone cleans their tack every ride. I do it before shows or if it is looking grimy or dusty. I probably should start wiping it down more, but I’ve only been able to ride once or twice a week lately so I’m not too fussed about it. My horse doesn’t seem to care.
