Baby, Its Cold Outside...

...and we have a clinic this weekend!

If you have hot water in your wash rack (or a wash rack at all), consider yourself blessed.  If you have heat lamps, well, you’re just living the dream.  For the rest of us, presenting our woolly beasts looking their best during the cold winter months takes a few tricks and a whole lot of elbow grease.

The Woolly Beast, slightly less woolly to help prevent puddle playing.

First, there is absolutely no substitution for daily grooming.  You’ll run across some people who tell you not to groom in the winter because it strips the natural oils from your horse’s coat.  That’s baloney.  Too much washing or using grooming sprays and stain removers can remove those oils, but good old fashioned scrub-a-dub rubbing is one of the best things you can do for your pony.  Plus it’s an excellent work out and will warm you up quickly.

Along with good deep currying, pick out your horse’s feet, and invest in a good super stiff brush.  Brushes come in as many shapes, sizes, materials, and bristle lengths as custom ordered saddle pads.  Probably more.  Each has its purpose, but you can pretty quickly evaluate which brushes will work best for you.

This is my “Mud Brush.”  I only use it to get caked on mud off legs and on fuzzy, fuzzy horses in the winter (its getting a little ragged and needs to be replaced - I know).  It has very stiff long plastic bristles.  The stiffness will flick the mud chunks off and the long bristles reach through the thickest coats to get the grime up from the skin.  It’s one of my winter staples.  It is also handy for brushing mud off the outside of turnout blankets in between washing.

If you’re lucky enough to have a horse with a relatively thin winter coat, you’ll need a brush with a little less bite.  Long bristles are still important to reach down to the skin and to help flick dirt up, but softer is kinder to those with a little less fluff.
I rarely use a finishing or soft brush in the summer (I usually just use a rub rag), but in the winter, a good quality (horse hair is you can afford it) short to medium bristled brush is great at removing dust and carrying those natural oils throughout the coat.  It makes them shine and helps protect them against the elements.

If you really do groom daily and you keep your brushes clean, you’ll be set with just those simple tools.  However, everybody takes a holiday now and then and occasionally there are occasions that warrant an extra special sparkle.  Even in the winter your steed can turn heads.

My favorite curry.  The big teethe break up dirt well.
The small side is perfect for faces and hard to scrub spots like the hocks.

First, start with a solid grooming session.  Your currying should bring any dirt, dandruff or scruff to the surface.  Now you have two options.  If you’re into disposable and you don’t have easy access to hot water, baby wipes are your friend.  Baby wipes are the best dust remover hands down.  They also work wonders on manure stains.  Scrub-a-dub and use a new one frequently.  They are also great for finishing touches like wiping out your horse’s nostrils and wiping out under his dock.  I also use my baby wipe supply to keep the inside of my horse’s blankets clean.  I just use a wipe or two to wipe out the grime that accumulates around the shoulders.  Just a little attention to detail can really help prevent shoulder rubs.

If you have hot water, you can save a bit of money by “hot toweling” instead of using baby wipes.  I like to work with two buckets of hot water and several towels.  Most people like to use dish washing gloves, but I’ve never been nice to my skin, so I don’t bother.  Basically you wet the towel in hot water, wring it as dry as you possibly can, they scrub an area.  When the towel gets to dirty or too cold, rinse it in the second bucket of water, wring it out, dunk in the first bucket, wring and repeat your scrubbing.  It takes a long time and a lot of water, but if you’re careful to get the towel dry enough each time, the horses seem to really enjoy it.  It’s kind of like going to the spa and having a hot towel yourself.

Finally, if you want your fussy pony to look her best, you might consider making her just a little less fuzzy.  Besides a tidy bridle path, your clippers can trim up the billy goat whiskers (if your horse lives outside, I wouldn’t cut the feeler whiskers on his nose, just the long shed hairs under this jaw bones), outsides of the ears, and the fetlocks.  One note of caution with fetlocks, if your horse is prone to scratches, don’t take off all the hair.  Clip carefully leaving a little peak at the back of the fetlock.  This helps precipitation drip off instead of pooling between the heel bulbs leading to all kinds of unpleasantness. 

I let my horse’s manes grow a bit longer in the winter.  We don’t have a lot of shows in the area and none that require braiding.  I think just a little extra fluff can help keep them warmer.  I certainly don’t like going out without my stocking cap!  If you’re trying to be presentable, don’t hesitate to even things up a bit, or even pull to about four inches.  If you want to leave it long – the French braid is your friend!

For finishing touches, wood putty matching your horse’s hoof color can fill in cracks.  Baby powder dusted lightly into white leg marking can lighten them up a bit, and don’t forget the importance of clean tack!  You’ve scrubbed the horse; don’t ask him to work in dirty equipment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a lot of work, but pretty much anything in life worth doing is.  So, bundle up and get scrubbing.  The cleaner they are before you ride, the cleaner they’ll be when you’re done.  Grooming is good for them, good for you and more than a means to an end.  Hopefully by Spring you’ll have a Fresh Perspective on grooming.