Cleaning Saddle Pads

Confession: I suck at keeping horse gear clean. At shows I tend to hope that most people will be focused on their own business, and any dirt or stains noticed in the show ring will be attributed to the warm-up. I always manage to bump against some dirty, greasy part of the truck or trailer while wearing my white breeches. I tend to just buy cheap white show pads and breeches so I don't feel so bad when I ruin them.

But as a generally neat and tidy person, I don't want to be that slob. So, I've recently been experimenting with some different methods of cleaning saddle pads and here's what I've learned.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure
Okay, this one thing makes a huge difference! After each hot summer ride, turn the hose on full-blast, hang the saddle pad upside down on a fence, and spray the dirt and sweat off the underside of the pad before it dries and hardens. I also use a Strip Hair groomer to flick off the hair. Leave the pad out to dry in the sun. It should be soft and relatively clean in a few hours. If you add this to your daily routine, your pads will stay cleaner and go longer between real washes.

For a deep clean, try a pressure washer
If you have a farm, odds are you have a pressure washer. If not, you should! They're incredibly useful for cleaning pretty much everything...trailers, buildings, concrete floors, horse brushes, you name it. (Not the horses though!) I recently broke mine out and sprayed off all my saddle pads with just water. For some of the pads, I found the results almost miraculous.

Look at this Euro Eventer pad! I washed half of the underside and was so amazed at the results that obviously I had to take a picture. The crazy thing is that I don't use this pad often at all, so the dirt was old and well set. It had also already been washed in the machine. This is not fresh dirt coming off. Amazing!

I tried both the 40-degree and 25-degree nozzles. The 25-degree one was probably a little much and I did notice damage to some of the cheaper pads afterwards. If you go this route, be careful, start with lower pressure, and test it on your older or less-expensive pads first.

I soaked a few pads in Oxy Clean for a couple of hours before pressure washing and didn't really notice a difference between those pads and the others.

For tough stains, try Fels Naptha soap
You know those dark boot stains right behind the girth? Try pre-treating them with a bar of Fels Naptha soap. The old boot stains I treated with it didn't come out completely, but I was surprised how much things improved. I can't wait to try it on a fresher stain!

Boot stain before Fels Naptha soap

Same boot stain after Fels Naptha soap

One pad from beginning to end

Show pad before cleaning

Show pad after soaking in Oxy Clean and pressure washing with just water

Show pad after pressure washing, spot treating with Fels Naptha soap, and machine washing on the deep clean cycle with bleach and hot water. It's not perfect but it's definitely a lot more presentable. If I had washed this right after use I think the results would have been much better.

I don't feel like I've mastered this because that white show pad is still not sparkling clean. How do people do that? Other things I'd like to try are spraying new pads with Scotch Guard before use and washing show pads immediately after the show (duh).