We hang up our cinches religiously after each use, ensuring there are no twists. Mohair can sometimes dry a little crisp, so laying the cinch in a manner it would lay on a horse is imperative. You’ll notice there’s no back cinch on this saddle. I don’t rope often and mostly ride to improve my horse and myself, so a back cinch just gets in the way of my cues.

If your saddle doesn’t have a cinch-keeper, one can easily be fashioned from saddle strings, either by putting a bleeding knot in the strings or tieing a different small knot.

The same theory applies for back cinches, we hang them to dry curved like the belly of the horse. This keeps the underside of the cinch nice and smooth and prevents cracking. To hang both a back cinch and front cinch, we loop the front cinch (the bigger, round buckle) over the smaller, square back cinch buckle, then use the back cinch buckle to hang them both. Keeping them up off the ground is the biggest thing here.

My husband is far more organized than I am and each item has a peg or a spot to hang or sit. Brushes are always at hand right where they are most needed, and an antler makes a fine hanger for items that are needed that day. It is mounted on my husband’s revolving saddle wall, so if he has a bridle that needs to go back, he temporarily hangs it there, then puts it away once the wall has revolved and he is inside his tack room.

Halters are hung a particular way in this house, erm, barnhold. By hanging them with the loop up and the rest of the halter hanging down, and the part the horse’s face will go in facing toward us, it is always ready to go catch a horse. We don’t put a loop in the lead rope, we just lay it once over the hook, so if there are quite a few halters hanging, we grab the halter part and pull, and the lead rope should follow without any need for sorting.