Does your leather tack get moldy?

 Anyone without a tackroom and a stable that gets very humid - especially in winter, when you live a country that gets very cold in winte,  knows just how bad it can be for your leather tack. 

At the old stable we didn't have a tackroom, just like we don't have it at the new stable. The old stable would also get very humid, so all the leather would get moldy, if you didn't took care of it. Okay to be honest I didn't have that much of a problem with it. My saddle is made from faux leather. Yes I would like a real leather saddle, if I could afford it, but as you know, having a horse, can be quit expensive. My bridle is on the other hand, is made out of leather. Still not an bridle that cost a lot of money, but you know it works! 

There was how ever, one of the other women at the old stable, that had a lot of problems with her leather tack, getting really moldy. So every time she wanted to ride, she had to clean her tack, or else everything would be full of mold! Like I said, I never really had any problems with it. Don't know if it was the quality of my leather tack, that would make it less moldy, because it wasen't as pricy as hers. The only thing that would get really moldy, was a bridle that I didn't use and was just hanging in my locker. But yeah that was about it really. 

When I was on my way home from the new stable one day, it suddenly dawned on me! I think I know why her tack would get so moldy, and mine didn't! I also want to say, that it is only a theory, so I can't prove it because we moved stable. At the new stable we have a carport and a door next to, which is open most of the time. The carport is open pretty much all the time. When it's storming outside and the horses are in the stable, we close it. The door is open most of the day and only get closed, if we have to get someting behind it, or for the night. There's also windows in every stall, that's open most of the time. So the stable gets alot of air around. I'm not saying that the old stable was bad at this point, because it wasn't. They just didn't have the same possibilities. 

So if the stable is very humid, your leather tack would very often get moldy - especially if you don't clean it! "Don't clean it? But I do! At least once a month I deep clean it, so it doesn't get as much mold!" you might say. If you deep clean it once a month, that's really good! One thing us equestrians are really bad at, is cleaning our tack. But the cleaning I'm talking about, isn't the one where all the leather gets a proper wash! The cleaning I'm talking about, is simply to wipe your tack after you used it. I use a wipe made for leather after everytime I have used my bridle for an example. I also wash the bit everytime. I couldn't imagine to have some dirty metal in my mouth (any of us who have had braces, you know the metal kind, knows this feeling!). 

Well back to this girl. So her leather was always really moldy. She always blamed it on the leather hang a place that was really cold, because it hang right next to a door, that was open when the horses were in the stable. But all our leather tack hangs at a kind of similar place at the new stable. So the theory I talked about earlier in this post is: What if the leather always got moldy because she didn't wipe it after she had used it? I mean she would always wipe it with a baby wipe right before she used it, then put it on the horse, ride in it, then tack it off and hang the saddle on the rack and the bridle in the locker. 

If you don't see anything wrong with this, then let me explain it! First she wipes it down with something that's wet, then put it on the horse that's sweats when its riding. She sweats too. When she's done she just hangs the tack back. The bridle gets hanged in the locker. The thing is, she never really lets the leather dry. When she wipes it down the first time, she doesn't let the leather dry, before putting it on the horse. So you have wet leather, that's only getting  more wet from the horse's and hers sweat. When she's done she just hangs it back without removing the sweat off the leather. So that means the leather now is wet from both the wiping before use and the sweat. If she were to wipe the tack afterwards to get the sweat of, my theory is, that I wouldn't get as moldy, because the sweat takes a long time of drying and when it takes a long time of drying and it never really dries properly, then yes of course the will be alot of mold! 

I'm not trying to be a saint - I'm really not! But I always wipes the tack after use because a) It makes the leather last longer and b) It also looks nice and feels nice with clean tack! The thing about leather is, that it's skin.. I don't know if people know this, but leather is skin from animals and like our skin, it has to be a little kind of damp. Well not damp, but it can't be comepletely dry, because then it breaks. You know like our skin does too, when it's to dry! BUT the leather can never be WET! If its wet (from sweat maybe) and you just hang in a locker, it will NEVER dry and your leather will be completely wet all the time, if you don't let it hang a bit to dry, before you put a cover on your saddle or hang your bridle in a locker. If it's wet all the time, then of course your leather will get moldy and fast! 

So my advice for you is to: Wipe your leather tack after use, but let it dry before you put a cover on or hang it a place, where it can't really breath! You'll only hold the wetness in the leather and as a result, you'll get a really, really moldy tack!