Grooming

Well I think Im going to give Lucas until the end of the month (January that is) It will give us time to really work on our showmanship/halter (during our hand walking) as well as getting me walking on a good consistent surface, which should help with my weight as well (so far so good, no extra joint pain over the past month). His leg is good, to me its just not the same as his other leg yet and Im more than willing to spend more time on the ground to get him feeling better. If Im working on my own fitness on the ground, really Lucas doesn't need to go back to work until March. I would be the only one holding us back at that point. The farrier will also be back out around the 20th so he can have a look at his feet as well then.


So on with the brushes!

I usually start with a proper rubber curry with 'sharp' teeth. The teeth wear down fairly quickly so in the spring/summer I usually get a new curry each month. And these are the little curry's, if you have a large hand like I do I need to stretch out the hand strap before its comfortable! In the winter or when the horse is extremely dirty I just use the regular circular motion to bring the dirt up off the skin to the end of the hair. However the trick is that whenever the horse is shedding (anytime other than Oct-mid Feb) you want to use the curry in the SAME direction in the hair in short hard strokes. This will pick up any loose hair and get it off the horse. Other than the few months of the winter you should be able to get several hand fulls of hair off the horse. Do this everywhere. Face, body, legs everything if you are gentle it won't hurt the horse.

Next is the hard bristled brush, which I use the same way as written in all of the horse books. I love natural bristled brushes but they are very expensive and hard to keep really clean so I use the cheap ones. I do have natural brushes that I use at the shows, which really bring out the shine!

Then I use the soft brush all over the horse, followed by a cloth (just a regular one) or a stable mitt. I usually oil Lucas feet 3-4 times a week with fiskes (http://fiskes.ca/index.html) I had slacked off during the fall, and it came back to haunt me.

I brush out his mane every couple of days, although it needs to be pulled now! And I take his tail out of the tail bag every weekend and brush it out. His tail has thickened up a whole bunch, but he doesn't have much of a tail at the tail bone as it is.

I always use nylon sheets and winter blankets with a nylon lining in them, I do have a polar fleece liner but I only use it when its very cold or we need another layer without steaping up a blanket weight.