Cleaning Felt Saddle Pads - Look at the Strip Hair Tool

For decades I have used a curry brush when cleaning horse hair, especially the tons of it you get during shedding season (which is now where I am at in West Texas). As gentle as I tried to be cleaning those pads I would degrade the pad somewhat, tearing up some of the felt. This year with yet another horse in the string, and shedding earlier than the other horses, I found myself cleaning his pad almost before each ride.

Well lo and behold an ad appears on Facebook showing this tool called 'Strip Hair'. I showed my wife and she said I must have been one of the last people in the world to see that tool and that they have been around for years. Heck, I don't know, sometimes I do feel left behind, so I ordered one right away and quickly received it in the mail.

The Strip Hair tool was designed to shedd out horses and clean pads. I intended it pretty much for just cleaning my pads and it worked. I use different pads for each horse, all of them the excellent CSI pads that I went to years ago. The photo below is a CSI pad, that I had actually cleaned a couple days ago, but after this evening's ride I cleaned one side to show the different after using the Strip Hair tool. The cleaner side was after about 2 minutes of use. Pretty efficient I'd think.

While the Strip Hair tool works well on felt saddle pads you do have to use it at different angles to get the embedded hair up from the pad as not all the hair sticks to the pad in the same direction. The Strip Hair tool advertises that it is useful for grooming horses as well. I'm still using a metal curry brush and hair brush on the horses as it collects the hair where I can direct it to the ground. I did try the Strip Hair on shedding out a couple horses, but the tool does not collect the hair like a curry brush so a decent wind, and we're in the windy spring season here in West Texas, blows the loose hair around in a hair cylcone - uncomfortable for a guy with a mustache. Most ladies would be okay. Bottom line is that I don't think anyone would be disappointed in the Strip Hair tool for at least cleaning felt pads.