Spring time is here, at least a few days a week, in West Texas.  Last week we had a high of 72 on Thursday and a severe blizzard on Friday, so it's not permanent yet.  But one of the rituals of Spring at my place is to get all the tack out on a nice, sunny day and clean and oil everything.

We clean the dust off of everything leather.  Soap what needs it.  And oil everything.  We also inspect our saddles to make sure that the cinches and latigos are still up to snuff.  This year we did discard a cinch that had lived out it's usefullness and a couple of leather latigos that were starting to show a few cracks.

To give you all a more expert opinion, I visited with Scott Thomas of Cactus Saddlery.  Here are is recommendations when it comes to cleaning and caring for your leather gear.

 I recommend that you clean and oil your saddles and tack twice a year. You might have to do this more often depending on how hard you use your saddles and tack. I would use just warm water and soap for the cleaning process. Use a soft horse brush or cloth to apply and scrub your cleaning water. For the detail work use a soft tooth brush. With products that are very bad you can actually use a high pressure washer to help get down deep. Let your tack dry for one day after cleaning, and then apply a coat of saddle / neatsfoot oil. You can apply a sealer if you want to and that is SaddleLac which can either wipe on or spray.

Scott Thomas, Cactus Saddlery