Care for Your Saddle in the Cold

Question: Am I damaging my saddle by leaving it in an unheated tack room? I live in Maine, where temperatures often don’t go above freezing for weeks. I have noticed a whitish film on the flaps on sub-freezing days. If that is from the leather conditioner I use, should I change conditioners or is the film insignificant?

Master saddler Jochen Schleese answers:

Ideally, leather goods should be stored dry at room temperature, or maybe slightly cooler (around 55 to 60 degrees F), and at a humidity of 30 to 40 percent in order to retain the suppleness of the leather. They should never be stored cooler than 5 degrees Celsius (41 degrees F). If you store your tack and saddles in a moist, humid location, you will see the appearance of mold and mildew. This can be removed and simply means the leather still retains enough moisture to sustain such growth, but it will likely leave an unsightly stain. If you store your saddles below freezing, as you have stated, what you are likely seeing is the solidification of the saddle soap you have left on the leather.

One of the greatest misconceptions has been with the correct use of saddle soap. We use it to rid the leather of accumulated sweat and grime, which, if left on, will result in the leather becoming brittle and cracking. However, if not removed properly after use, the soap will also take its turn destroying the leather, eating away its tan. Today’s leathers will get destroyed by unremoved soap faster because now manufacturers add more chemicals in the soap.

Leather is essentially just skin that has been treated (“tanned”), and skin is made of 70 to 80 percent water. Even after the skin has been tanned into leather, a moisture content of about 25 percent is retained. In the past, leather was tanned over a six-month period and was more durable, but many North American tanneries take only about six weeks. The durability of the leather is dependent on the method of tanning--chrome (chemically treated) versus vegtanned--and if it is spray-dyed or drum-dyed.

To retain the leather’s moisture content, every time after cleaning your saddle with soap, you need to apply some moisturizer to return some of the natural lubricants. I recommend a leather cream without any cleaning ingredients (soaps).

Leather oil can be used in a one-time application over the entire saddle or other tack if you wish to darken the original color. On the saddle, it should only be used thereafter on the panel as a lubricant, since the wool will soak up any excess. Used on the seat, it will soak through and onto the laminated and glued layers of the tree, possibly resulting in the eventual breakage of the tree, if you have an English spring tree.

Even with saddles built on other trees, we don’t recommend you apply oil more often. As a rule, oil should not be used anywhere the leather comes into contact with the rider (including breeches and gloves) as it tends to discolor these materials. In addition, oil on the flaps leads to such a softening of the leather that they become too flexible to fulfill their purpose. Make sure you use products that are meant for leather. (Baby oil belongs on babies, and olive oil belongs in the kitchen--not on leather!)

There are soaps available that contain glycerines or built-in moisturizers. They are beneficial only in that they serve to remove somewhat less of the natural lubricants of the leather during washing. Like soap, they need to be removed properly after use.

Storage at the right temperature and proper cleaning are crucial for healthy leather. If you keep this in mind, you’ll enjoy your leather goods for a long time.

Jochen Schleese is an owner of Schleese Saddlery Service LTD., Holland Landing, Ontario, Canada, schleese.com. This excerpt is from Dressage Today magazine.