All About Tack

I don’t know about you but I always seem to be skint.  If I ever have any spare cash I spend it immediately on a lesson or a competition, or if I am feeling very flush (or have a desperate need), new tack for my beloved horse.  Tack is a tool, a fashion statement, a way to show off your horse’s best features, to show you understand the new field of equestrian science or simply to display your own good taste in saddles.  It can help or hinder your horse as much as bad riding, and if chosen well it can improve your riding too.  Always use a qualified saddle fitter to help you – they have been thoroughly trained by the Society for Master Saddlers – a list is available on their website here:  https://www.mastersaddlers.co.uk/

£

There’s no getting away from it though – it’s an investment.  Decent tack from nosebands to discipline specific saddles is expensive.  Even if you trawl eBay and pick up good quality second-hand tack it’s still not cheap to buy, or to have to replace – so I try to look after it

Cleaning

We are supposed to clean our tack after every ride (ahem!), but back in the real world it’s difficult to find the time or the will to do that.  I try to give it a quick clean and a soap or a treatment once a week, and to take it apart properly once a month or before a big competition

For cleaning, there are myriad different soaps and cleansers and balms and potions out there.  You can buy traditional, or modern – the same brand as your saddle or as your favourite feed supplement.  Personally I find that traditional glycerine soap is the best – whichever brand.  It gets nosebands shiny, cleans grease from the insides of reins and keeps everything supple.  Important note – if you feel the need to treat the seat of your saddle either do it a few rides before beige breeches make contact with it, or use a leather milk that won’t make it look like you sat down in mud (or faced a very scary fence across country) when you dismount!

The dishwasher is the perfect place to get rid of grease from stirrup irons or grass/treat fragments from bits – especially loose ring bits.  Don’t forget to take off any lip straps or other leather fittings first though

Security

Keeping your tack safe is always a challenge too.  You have spent a fortune acquiring it and you’ve spent hours cleaning it only to chuck it in the back of your car or lorry and scratch it, or have something drop onto your saddle in the tack room.  I keep my saddles safe with a fleecy cover, and use a locker in the tack room – double secure.  At shows it’s handy, and sensible, to have some kind of stand or trolley to move your tack from the lorry to the horse without having saddles on the floor or bridles on the ramp asking to be trodden on.  The same trolley would double up as a secure way to transport your tack – stand it in the living or the last partition and lock the wheels.  Simple!

Storage

Storage is key.  Your tack storage needs to be dry and secure.  We have the luxury of a secure locked tack room attached to a house, but not everybody does.  I also use a locker – with wheels so it can be moved about for cleaning.  The padlocks have number codes so if anybody else is riding Beau I can give them the number to get to his tack and it can be locked up safe for next time

Handy hints

• After a hard cross country round or a day’s hunting - for a quick clean of sweaty bridle: fill a bucket with water, and add 2 drops of both vegetable oil and washing up liquid.  Simply dunk the complete bridle, give it a swish round, and hang it up to dry.  It will be clean enough to use the next day and because of the oil will not have hardened
• If the insides of your reins are greasy, instead of scrubbing with something too abrasive simply save a bit of mane from the last pulling, tie it into a firm knot and use the knot to scrub off the grease bumps.  Works a treat.  For really stubborn grease dip it into moistened saddle soap
• To get rid of soap blocking the holes in your bridle, simply stick a matchstick through the hole and wipe the blob off the end before drawing it back
• To prevent sand or dirt from your stirrups marking your saddle when put up, you can buy little socks for them – or indeed use a pair of socks!
• If you always mount from the left, try to swap your stirrup leathers over each time you clean tack.  This means both will stretch at the same rate, instead of the left stretching more than the right if you never swap them
• To get a really good shine on plastic stirrup treads – use plimsoll whitener, or black instant shoe shine liquid for black ones (obvs) – be sure to let them dry well before putting them back into your stirrups or like me you will wreck a good pair of jeans!
• If you ride on a synthetic saddle, use synthetic stirrup leathers to avoid rubs and stains.  Oh, and wash it after you ride, not before (as I discovered, it’s difficult to keep a towel in place during rising trot)