Grooming Your Horse
Grooming your horse is good for both the horse’s health and to help you bond with your horse.
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Grooming a horse is important for several reasons:
- It means that you ride a clean horse,
- It cleans the hair, untangles the mane and tail, massages the horse and promotes circulation of the blood,
- It is a special moment between horse and rider and is of the first contact between them,
- It makes it possible to check that the horse is healthy and that he hasn’t got any injuries.
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Grooming is best done outside the stable so that you don’t put the dirt in his bed which you are so carefully removing from his coat. Generally you should clean his feet in the stable into a skip so that you don’t drop the lumps of muck onto the stable yard. With the hook end of the hoof pick scrap from the frog outwards to remove any muck from under the shoe and in the sole of the hoof. You can use the brush end to finish cleaning the foot. Be careful not to scrap the frog as this part is living unlike the sole and the horn. Whilst you are cleaning the feet you can take the time to check that they are in good condition and the shoes still fit well.
Check that there are no risen clenches and that the shoe is still firmly fixed and not too worn. Check that there are no cracks in the horn. You could also oil the horn once or twice a week to preserve its flexibility. For practicality, first oil the lower part of the foot (the frog and the sole), then put the foot back on the ground and oil the wall.
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Order of Grooming
Having correctly picked out the horse’s feet in his stable, you can take the horse out of the stable and tie him up in a quiet place. Choose a place to tie him up that is wide enough for you to work with ease on both sides of him.
It is a good idea to tie the rope to a piece of baler twine which is itself tied to the tethering ring. This twine is a safety measure as it will break without hurting the horse if he jumps at anything and then will calm himself down much more quickly than if he was still tied.
If you can, it is a good idea to tie the horse with two lines fixed to the halter, one on the right and one on the left. This limits the movements of the horse and makes grooming easier and more pleasant.
First, use a rubber or plastic curry comb over the muscular parts of the body, avoiding the harder places like bones and tendons. Use the curry comb in circular movements to clean the hair deeply. Don’t forget clean the curry comb regularly by striking it on a hard surface; you could use the wood of the brush you are holding in your other hand.
Next we brush all the body with the Dandy Brush. You push this down hard into the hair to get the dust out of the coat. Don’t be frightened to use energetic movements as these will draw off the dirt more effectively.
You can then brush the whole body with the Body Brush to put a shine on the coat. Don’t forget to brush the horse’s head but be careful with the eyes and ears.
We can then move onto the mane and tail. Be careful with horses that you don’t know very well and don’t stand directly behind him when you are brushing the tail.
Next we take a natural sponge and clean, in this order, corners of the eyes, nostrils, mouth, anus and genitals. Wash the sponge well in clean water after each pass to reduce the risk of infection.
To finish grooming, we can pass a clean, soft linen cloth over the body to make the coat shine. There are many products on the market which will help make the horse’s coat shine.
It is important to oil the horse’s hooves once or twice a week to keep them flexible and maintain the health of the horn. Choose an ointment or natural oil with an animal or plant origin which can be applied with a brush. It is most important to use this at the coronet where the horn is new.
When you have time it is useful to shower the horse and massage his limbs with the help of a jet of water. The shower starts with his limbs then goes gently up the body while avoiding his head. This gives the horse time to get used to the temperature of the water. To help him dry faster, use a sweat scraper to get as much water out of his coat before allowing the air to dry him.
