Call me the Imelda Marcos of the equestrian world, an obsessive tack purchaser who never passes up a good deal, or any deal at all when it comes to leather goods. Maybe it’s because I spent so many years hoping and waiting for a horse that I suffer from a severe case of pent up purchasing. Whatever it is, the scope of my problem became pretty evident thanks to two recent incidents.

Incident number one: My youngest riding student, Natasha, seven years old, was tasked with going into the tack room to get a bridle for Volare, my old school horse. Natasha’s still too young and inexperienced to bridle a horse herself, but she’s learning to hold and hang a bridle properly. Natasha went into my tack room. “Miss Emily,” she said, “Why do you have so many bridles?”

“Well, I like them. You know, like how some women like shoes?” At this point, her dad piped in, “You know, like how Mommy likes purses.”

I took a look at my bridle rack from Natasha’s perspective: A medusa of strap goods. Seven bridles hanging on three hooks, only two of which are in active use. And that does not include the peg board of hanging bridle parts: cheek pieces and brow bands and headstalls and reins, umpteen reins, plus a couple of rope halters that some would consider bridle-like.

The second incident took place when my (non-horse-y) husband, who had sixteen days of Christmas vacation, decided to clean out the garage. When he was done, he had stacked three Rubbermaid storage trunks on the back porch.
“You need to go through those.”
“What’s in them?”
“Oh, I don’t know, horse junk.”
Among the stuff in the trunks were yet more bridles and bridle parts, along with galloping boots and old saddle pads and spent horse shoes, hoof dressing that had congealed and separated, empty bottles of horse shampoo (spilled into a goopy red puddle at the bottom of the trunk) and a horse blanket way to heavy to be useful for central New Mexico’s mild winters (left over from Massachusetts, where I haven’t lived since 1999).

When I was an event rider, each of the three disciplines required a different bit, and to avoid having to change them between phases I just bought a bridle for each event. That way I could be sure my bit wouldn’t fall out of my horse’s mouth as we galloped over the solid 3’9” scary-as-heck bank jump because I’d failed to assemble my bridle correctly. And I needed backups—an extra set of reins, an extra bridle in the trailer in case you forgot to pack one. Another extra bridle with a stronger bit in case the horse was feeling particularly fresh that day. You get the idea.

But it was clear: what had once been practical had morphed into obsession. Last year in Germany I bought a beautiful, light brown bridle because it was unique. Not because I needed it, but because I could imagine a day when I might need it.

What is it they say? The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem? Well, I admit it, but when I started to sort the junk into piles to be donated to the local disabled riding program, I couldn’t bear to part with it. Like clothes that no longer fit, I could imagine a time in the future when I actually might need a moldy hunter bridle long out of fashion. I’ll have to do a little more work to get over my tack obsession. When some people die, they find them buried in old magazines. When they find me, I’ll be happily submerged in bridle parts, having had a last delicious whiff of leather.