How to Wash Your Horse

One of the most important parts of this

presentation is washing your horse. I

recommend you use Champion Tails

products as they have a very wide range of

shampoos as well as a very good stain

remover.

The first thing we do is to wet the horse all

over with warm water. Warm water gives

you much more efficient washing. The

horse has been wet all over with warm

water and now we're going to shampoo.

You need two assistants, one to hold the

horse and one to help wash. The assistant

can help me to shampoo with silver

highlighting shampoo. It is important to get

the horse done all over, round its head, its

ears, and down between its legs and its

body in total.

You don't have to scrub them, you’ve just

got to distribute the shampoo and make

sure they're done all over. I will do her

socks with silver highlighting shampoo. The

best thing to do with it is to dilute in a little

bit of warm water because you'll find if you

don't, you get particles of purple on their

socks. You don't want that. Don't dilute it

too much, but just break it down and

actually really scrub in with the sponge.

I find, if you use a brush, it’s a bit severe.

Some people use a brush on their legs but I

don't really like it. You break the skin and

end up with little infections, not from the

shampoo just from broken skin. So we

always use sponges and I leave it on them,

so it does remove the stain. When you see

the pony white again and dry, the socks will

be iridescent white. If you use it on the tail,

you must condition at well afterwards

because it has a little bit of a drying effect.

Then your assistant will come in and scrape

her off. So scrape the majority of the

shampoo, and then it’s easy to rinse it

down. I'm just preparing a bucket of warm

water that we'll completely rinse the pony

off with and then condition the tail. I find

that if you condition the mane before

plaiting, it makes it too soft. So at home we

condition it but for showing presentation we

do not condition it because you find the

mane doesn't plait up as nicely. You need to

get another bucket and just rinse its socks

off. After you scrape, you do not need an

enormous amount of water to get the soap

out of them.

Scraping is a very good idea, especially if

it’s cold. A lot of people hose it off. We

scrape it off, and then rinse them off.

Always be careful you do around the

horse’s head because they do not like it in

it in their ears. When you're washing your

horse, it’s most important to be very quick.

The quicker you are, the warmer your horse

stays. Some people take ages and the poor

thing is standing there shivering, and you

do feel sorry for them. I rinse the shampoo

off the tail in preparation for conditioning.

I then get the conditioner and apply it. I use

the super highlighting conditioner for the tail

as it is complementary to the shampoo

we've used, but in this situation, we only

use it on the tail. But at home, if you’re just

washing them for maintenance, a little bit of

conditioner in a bucket of water is good.

But as we’re presenting this one for the

the ring, we don’t put it all over their body.

You rub it in well, and as I said, the essence

of it is to be very quick, because your

ponies get very cold. They shiver and their

coat dries and looks fluffy when you’re

finished. Leave that on for a minute, and

use a bucket of warm water again to rinse

the tail off.

We’ll then scrape her, and I've got a

conditioning coat spray. It's good, it just

puts some oils back into the skin. Spray

your pony all over, and you just apply a

brush on both sides. Again, be very quick

and make sure the horse is not standing

shivering because their muscles tie up and

they become stiff and sore. Especially when

you're working them up for a big event, and

they have had plenty of work, if you leave

them cold for too long, it's like us, they get

very muscle sore. Get your assistant to get

a comb and comb out her mane and tail.

The most important thing after you wash

them, is to get a rug on them to keep them

warm and to bring back the oils back in the

skin and their circulation. You don't want

them to go cold and stiff. So we rug them

up, quite heavily actually, we have at least

three rugs on them. A rug and a hood keep

them warm, and you think wet, they won’t

get as warm but they do warm up quite

quickly.

If you leave a lot of water on a horse's coat,

it's like insulation to a horse, basically it

forms a seal and keeps the warmth in. We

slip the hood over the head collar because

we are going to plait this pony. You don't

want her to roll in her box so we'll tie her up

so she stays clean. You don't want to spend

all that time washing them for nothing.

Always make sure your rugs are attached

properly because they’re dangerous if

they’re not. We’ll then put on two woolen

rugs rags and pop her back in the box for a

while and she'll warm up.

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