I'd rather not...

The other day I was cleaning and oiling my bridles. It is tough here in Houston to keep them looking nice unless they are kept inside. At the barn they are not. They end up dusty at best and fuzzy at worst.

As I was working on my English bridles I was thinking about this post. What is the one tack item you least enjoy cleaning? For me it is laced reins and almost all of my English bridles have them. Oh yippee! Heavy on the sarcasm there....

The reason I don't like cleaning laced reins is because the dust, crud and fuzz gets in under the lacing and is tough to get out. I will wipe mine down to keep them clean but for a deep cleaning, you have to get into all the nooks and crannies. Laced reins have a lot of them. It can be time consuming to do it right.

I wipe mine down as best I can to clean them off and then roll them up to fit in the bottom of a plastic container or tub and pour the neatsfoot oil over them. As I pull them out, unrolling as I go, I squeeze off the excess oil with my fingers and hang them up to 'dry'. If the leather is dry, it will soak up the oil quickly and may need another coat. Brand new leather may not dry completely and will require wiping down with a dry cloth. This may need to be done a few times until all of the excess oil comes out of the pores. For latigos on western saddles, they may 'leak' with each use as the leather is stretched a little to tighten the cinch.

Of course I don't do this often because it really isn't necessary and too much is not a good thing either, but when needed it is the quickest and easiest way to get the leather conditioned.

Another tack item I don't like cleaning is western saddles with excessive tooling. Hard PASS! Again the dust, dirt and crud gets in every nook and cranny and makes it a pain in the ass to clean. Honestly I will not buy a western saddle or even a breastcollar with a lot of tooling on it. The basket weave tooling is a little easier to clean but not much and can also be a pain. Back in the day at the Arab barns.... I can remember using a toothbrush on the show saddles to get the dust out of everything. Those saddles had tooling everywhere. Not my idea of a good time.

So which Tech items are your least favorite to clean and why?