How do you clean blankets and saddle pads?

How do you clean your winter blankets? show pads and the white pad that goes under your show pad?

Denise

Car wash with the high powered jets

Some I go to the laundromat and use THEIR stuff - they sometimes have the big washers for comforters - and I use those...

I take my winter blankets to the laundry mat and toss them into the big machines. I use regular detergent, lightly, and wash on cold water. Works fine, colors stay bright and I have never had one tear apart. I usually only dry them on high for 20 minutes.

Once I took one of my saddle pads to a car wash. I thought this was a great idea since it was high pressure and I could get the sweat off of it. Turns out it was a bad idea. The colors bled like crazy and I had a ruined $150 pad. Dont do what I did!

RAchel's show pad is black with wear leathers on it? Any ideas on how to clean that? And she has a thick foam pad that she uses under her show pad. HOw 'bout cleaning that?

Denise

Is the thick foam under pad white? If it is, I bet you could get away with taking it to the car wash. Im not sure about the black one though. Who makes the black one? Maybe you could call them and see what they say?

I do know they take forever to dry, and if it isnt warm enough outside, they could start to smell like mildew

You can always take the pads to a cleaners. I use my washer and dryer for my horse blankets. But, they are not muddy.. Also, check and see if you have someone in your areas that cleans this things. We have one around here called. The blanket Lady. She cleans and mends. I bet you have some thing like that if you area..

The feed stores take them in and they cleaning people pick them up and bring them back to the feed store you left them in. If no one in your area could be a GREAT side business...

We use to have a lady close to us that did that kind of work. She went out of business about 6 years ago. I did this past winter, take one of my new blankets to a tailor for a patch up and to fix the trim. She acted like it was no big deal, but I got a call the next day asking me to come pick it up. Her non horsey customers were asking what that smell was My horse had only worn it for two days, and was standing in shavings up to her knees. THere were no pee spots or poo on it, but I guess it still smelled horsey.