Tack Room Tour: OCD Much?

As mentioned before I watch a lot of YouTube. In fact at this point it’s almost completely replaced any other form of tv such as Hulu or Netflix (I don’t have cable). I LOVE watching vlogs, it’s totally a guilty pleasure for me and I love seeing people doing mundane things. I’m a very visual person so seeing how other people do things is interesting to me and it makes me feel like we’re ultimately all so similar. We all have our own strengths and our own struggles. It’s easy to read something and add meaning that wasn’t ever meant to be there or to write something with a positive or negative spin on it that someone else might not have felt but with videos you can see more of the real truth.

  I watch a lot of vegan videos, tiny house building videos, and recently have started watching Casey Neistat’s vlogs which are spectacular. However, some of my favorite videos to watch are done by other riders. I enjoy watching barn vlogs because, as mentioned previously, it’s fun to see how other people interact with their horses, seeing their successes and being able to cheer them on, and how they struggle the same way I do sometimes. Last night one of the people I’m subscribed to (an eventer in Australia) did a tack room tour and it made me think of doing this post. I know that people blog about this as well but her set up specifically made me curious about what others do and I decided to share mine.

Part of my space, saddle with tack cleaning rag hanging, helmet hanging in the back over a container that holds Katai's boots. Coat spray and grooming tote in front.

I tend to be very neat at the barn however, that's not the case at home. My space at home ranges from slightly messy to nuclear disaster and although I clean it every week or two I have no issue with tossing stuff on the floor to be dealt with later. I’m the same way in the kitchen and thankfully I have patient roommates because I tend to pile dishes until I have a chance to clean them and then I clean and scrub the whole kitchen. My car is also normally a disaster and I regularly leave dirty horse blankets in there with the windows closed in spring (speaking of that I had an interesting day where I offered someone a ride and I thought they were going to pass out from dirty horse blanket smell while I was so used to it that I didn’t even notice) However, with my horse(s) I’ve always been extremely neat. I bring all of my leather tack home every month and do a thorough cleaning. I enjoy tack cleaning so much that I’d probably have it home every week if I didn’t know that was bad for the leather. I also wipe it down with a damp cloth after every ride, which is a fairly recent addition to my process.

Mine's on the left with the pink polkadot tote, Bridle is lower row with the bundled up cream colored lunge line hanging. All the way to the right is a refrigerator specifically for the horses with is amazing :-)

I just LOVE the feeling of soft, buttery, clean tack and really dislike that stiff, caky, cracked leather feel that bridles in particular get if they aren’t cleaned on a regular basis. I also wash saddle pads every few rides during the summer when they get nasty and sweaty quickly and at least every couple of weeks during the winter when they just don’t get as dirty. I’ve got a “horse laundry” bin in my basement at home that fills up pretty quickly with tack rags, sweaty saddle pads, coolers, grooming rags, polos or boots, and I wash my saddle cover every few months. I love all of it, it’s like therapy for me and bringing a neat clean pile of folded horse laundry back to the barn feels amazing. My fellow boarders don't seem to feel the same way though and I'd say that most of the leather goods at my barn are not treated the same as mine.

This YouTube vlogger had a similar setup to my fellow boarders’ with a packed cabinet in complete disarray. She had gloves in two separate places, blankets piled on the ground (which was dirt), strap goods in tangled piles etc. I guess it just made me wonder if I’m an OCD horse person or if other’s are bothered as much as I am by dirty tack and yet couldn’t care less about a messy house?

Youtube Playlist Favorites:

Hannah Lucy - Australian Eventer
equine.emma1996 - Another Australian Eventer
Carter Sulivan - Canadian Dressage rider
Hot for Food - My favorite vegan food blog - GREAT recipes!