Advice sought turning a bit of my garage into a mini tack room

[Keith_Beef]

As in the title, I've been using a bit of the garage to store various bits of riding kit for a while, and need to get it more organised.

I've got three Elfa Wallbands securely screwed to the CMU (commonly known as breezeblock or cinderblock) wall.

Two of these have shelf brackets, on which I've fixed a couple of old kitchen cabinets; they are currently filled with spools of paracord, cans of leather grease and neatsfoot oil, spare inner tubes for the bicycles.

The third Wallband is set off a bit to the left, and at the moment has three shelf brackets, 40cm or 50cm size (I forget which). For now, the only thing these are used for it hanging the bike rack that fits on the car, a big hank of rope, and a couple of coathangers where I hang the grotty, smelly Babour jacket that I wear when riding in cold or wet weather.

So I'm thinking of using one of the brackets as a saddle rack.

The racks up at the yard are basically two pieces of wooden plank, about 20 inches long and 6 inches wide, joined at 90° along the long edge. If there is picture below, they look like the ones shown in it (not at the yard where I ride, but almost identical).

I've seen other plans where the piece that the saddle rests on is a half-round shape, or an approximation of half-round, others similar to the racks up at the yard, but with a much wider angle, others that seem to go to a lot of effort to approximate the shape of the horse's back....

Now we get to the question... where should the weight of the saddle be, when on the rack? On the padded lining, as it would be when on the horse? On the gullet?

 

[Red-1]

I use a pole rack so the weight is on the gullet, this has been recommended to me by saddlers.

The above rack would not offend me though, or a half round one. What I would avoid is the type that are metal bars. I used to have those, but you could actually see and feel the groove left in the flocking.

 

[HappyHollyDays]

I too use pole racks to put my saddles on. They sit on sheepskin numnahs as well so they never have indentations in the flocking. Can't stand the usual metal ones you find in most tack rooms, they don't do a saddle any favours especially ones that are being stored long term.

If money were no object I would have one of the beautiful wooden built racks you see occasionally which are a piece of art in themselves.

 

[Keith_Beef]

I use a pole rack so the weight is on the gullet, this has been recommended to me by saddlers.

The above rack would not offend me though, or a half round one. What I would avoid is the type that are metal bars. I used to have those, but you could actually see and feel the groove left in the flocking.

That's reassuring, thanks. For now, to give me an idea of how much clearance I need to leave around the saddle, to be able to place it on the rack and lift if off easily, without knocking into other things, I sat a piece of heavyweight cardboard tube (around 10cm in diameter) on the shelf bracket, with the saddle's gullet resting on the tube.