An Illustrated Guide To |
Show TimeGrooming your horse for the show ring will usually start with clipping. Nothing improves the looks of man or horse more than a good hair cut. Oil the clippers before you start. If your horse perks his ears forward when you turn the clippers on that means it is a good time to introduce him to the clippers again. Wranglers never mind RE-introducing the horse to the equipment. "See, this is okay." Elfie goes even farther. After the horse smells of the clippers a few times she will then rub the clippers against the horse, but without the motor running. Then she lets the horse smell of the clippers again before turning the motor on. Again she rubs the side of the clippers against the horse's neck or cheek and lets the horse smell of them again. Any time the horse becomes fidgety she lets him smell the clippers again before proceeding. Eventually she can begin the actual clipping, interspersed with just rubbing the horse's neck with the clippers.
Because she takes this extra time
However, the vibration of the clippers can sometimes be more of a shock than the noise. To soften that vibration you can hold your hand firmly against the other side of the head, or ear as you clip. It is a good idea to pat the horse more than usual to let him know everything is okay and all this extra attention is normal. |
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| Before you bring the clippers out, fake tie your horse and use a stiff brush to remove all dust particles
from the horse's coat. Be sure to lift the mane up so you can brush thoroughly under there. Get rid of all his grandpa hairs. If the vibration tickles, hold his head gently to absorb the vibration. You should keep following all the little hairs you want to get rid of. To clip the bridle path on a horse, tip the ear back and draw a imaginary line to this point clip the hairs back to that line and this makes a nice bridle path that also gives the horse a clean cut appearance. Hold the forelock up and clip up close, then hold the forelock down and go around it. When you are clipping the ears, start at the top and come down. This lets the hairs inside the ears keep the clipped hairs from falling inside. Be sure you don't clip away the eye lashes. He needs them to keep the dust and flies out. But your grooming does look better if you clip right up to the lashes. Be sure to clip under the jaw line. When you are brushing the horse's coat, at the end of each brush stroke you'll want to FLICK the brush away from you so that dust and loose hair is launched away from the brush. To be even more efficient, Elfie has installed a thin rod beneath the hitch rail. She cleans the brush out against this rod as often as necessary. If there is too much activity going on around the grooming area you will be better off to just wait until things are quieter. This is smarter for both of you.
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Fresh brands need special, LIGHT, attention,
but you DO want to make sure it stands out brightly just in case your horse
gets mixed up with a strange herd, or someone hauls him away on purpose.
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Professional wranglers -- like Elfie --have a lot of tricks up their sleeves to make the grooming process go much smoother. So, as John Wayne would have said, "Listen Up, Pilgrim!"
For greater coat shine you can feed the horse liquid vitamins,
making them available in a separate bin. When supplying your
horse with dry vitamins you can add 1 cup of Corn oil in their grain and vitamins if
you think they need it Leaving halters on horses in a pasture can be dangerous. If you need to use one, the break away halters will
at least come off and keep your horse injury-free. They can be easily
made with another piece of leather.
Please click on each small picture in turn
Steel curry brushes
shouldn't be used where top show horses receive extra grooming.
After the entire coat is completed students come back with a softer hand brush. Using short, fast, flicking motions -- going WITH the grain of the coat-- the loosened hairs and debris are flicked off. Note the rope holding the head. |
