Make bath time with your horses stress free and get them looking their best with these top 10 horse care tips and tricks for bathing your horse…
Top horse care tips and tricks for bathing your horse…
1) A drop of apple cider vinegar in warm water to wash off sweaty horses after exercise helps remove stains
2) Before bathing, give them a proper groom to remove excess dirt and hair. It’ll make bathing much easier!
3) For most horses, having their head washed is their least favourite part of bath time, so get this out of the way first and dry their face with a towel (they’ll usually be more patient/tolerant at the beginning of a bath)
4) If the tail is really matted, wash it and leave conditioner or coconut oil on it while you get on with bathing the rest of them, then rinse this off at the end. Same goes for stained white tails, leave them to soak with a whitening shampoo
5) There’s nothing worse at bath time than battling with never ending suds, and it’s a common mistake to squeeze shampoo directly onto the coat. Start by soaking the horse with water, then dilute some shampoo with water in a bucket to wash them. As you rinse off, use a sweat scraper to help remove suds (use a bucket and sponge if your horse isn’t keen on a hose, but as a hose is easier, to get them used to it you can start running one near them daily and gradually work up to using it on them)
6) Wash front to back, top to bottom. It makes no sense to get the legs clean, then let dirt from the body wash down over them, so start at the top and work down, and work from the front of the horse to the back
7) Massaging the coat with a rubber curry comb while bathing can help to remove excess hair and dirt
8) Washing up brushes with built in soap dispensers are great for cleaning white socks; fill them up with whitening shampoo and scrub the legs
9) For dazzling white socks, apply some chalk powder or rub a chalk block over them while they’re still damp for best results (talcum powder works in a pinch, but is a poor substitute for proper whitening chalk)
10) Don’t bath your horse too often as it will strip the oils from the coat and actually make it look duller over time (even top show yards don’t wash more than 1-2 times a week)
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