Taking Care Of Your Tack Doesn't Have To Be Tough

Although leather care products have changed, a daily regimen is still your best preservative.

Tack care—we all know we’re supposed to do it and do it regularly, but beyond that questions abound. How often do I need to clean my tack? What products work best? What do I do with that ancient saddle molding away in the back of my tack room?

Like many aspects of the horse world, tack care is full of folklore, superstition and practices centuries old. You clean tack the way you learned to as a child, whether that was in Pony Club or at the feet of a respected groom or trainer. The fact that your education might have occurred 50 years ago is no reason to change your methods, right?

In fact, modern day leather care actually has changed over the years. The tanning process continues to evolve, as do the products designed to keep tack looking and feeling as good as new.

Some things never change, and the first step to keeping tack in the best shape possible is to wipe it off after every use.

“Dust is a big enemy of leather. It’s microscopically sharp. It will grind into the matrix of the leather and degrade it. It’s very important to take the dust off the saddle,” said Colleen Meyer, a self-described “lifelong horsewoman and incurable tackaholic” who owns the saddle fitting company Advanced Saddle Fit in Marlborough, N.H., and is a qualified saddle fitter in the society of Master Saddlers from Great Britain.

“If you wipe it down very lightly with a cloth-covered sponge and put a cover on it before you store it, that’s a very simple thing that can prolong the life of the leather and protect it from excessive wear,” said Meyer. “I like to see tack wiped down with a damp cloth every time it’s used,” agreed Kitt Hazelton, who works as a saddle fitter and saddle repair specialist for Trumbull Mountain Saddlery in Shaftsbury, Vt.

“Once a week, or more often if you’re out riding in the muck, wash it with a good castile soap or something like Effax. Depending on use, once to twice a week do the whole saddle with a nice light coat of conditioner,” continued Hazelton.

While it’s not always easy to find time for regular tack care, an extra five minutes a day can save you hours later and add years to the life of your tack.

“If you wipe your saddle off every time you use it with something, even if it’s just water, you shouldn’t need to undertake massive cleaning,” said Meyer. “My saddles don’t get jockeys because I don’t let it go that long. A little bit of wiping off every day, like you floss your teeth before you go to bed, is going to be a much better regimen than getting all your cleaning stuff together, turning on your iPod and devoting the next two hours to cleaning tack.”

Products That Work And Products That Don’t

Tried-and-true tack cleaning products certainly still work well, but in today’s competitive equestrian market, some newer cleaners and conditioners are also worth a look.