Some horses have beautiful long tails naturally. Others need some help. And no, I’m not talking about tail extensions.

Taking proper care of your horse’s tail can make a big difference.

Instructions:

• Make sure your horse’s nutritional needs are covered. Feeding a complete feed, or adding a multivitamin, can help ensure that your horse has the nutrients he or she needs. Feeding flax seed, or a flax-based supplement, often helps make a horse’s mane, tail and coat shinier because they add Omega 3 fatty acids to their diet.
• Touch the tail as little as possible. Daily brushing is the last thing you should do.
• In fact, put away your combs and brushes! The best way to detangle your horse’s tail is by hand, otherwise you risk breaking the fragile hairs. This is especially true when the tail is dry.
• Use a conditioner or detangler to help get knots out. You can leave it in the tail for added conditioning. Lots of people swear by Shapleys MTG, others like regular conditions or Meka Tek Cell Rebuilder, I’ve even read about some off the wall home treatments such as bacon grease! If you’re looking for something from your medicine cabinet, baby oil isn’t a bad choice. You can use it in the winter to keep the hair from drying out.
• Keep your horse’s dock, sheath or teats clean. If these areas are dirty, they can be itchy. You don’t want your horse to rub its tail.
• Protect your horse’s tail (and the rest of his coat) from the sun by using textaline fly sheets. They cover the top of the dock.
• When you ship your horse, put a tail wrap on. Even horses that don’t normally rub their tails will sometimes do this when trailered, maybe because they end up leaning on the butt bar. A neopene tail wrap can really save his tail from damage.
• Some people braid the tail or put it up with strips of cloth or in a tail bag. I wouldn’t recommend that you try this in the summer, when your horse needs its tail, but lots of people put up their horse’s tails all winter.

A baroque horse with Running braid.

Spanish, or running, braids are used on horse breeds where the manes are left long. This includes Baroque horses like Andalusians and Fresians, and breeds such as Arabians and Morgans who need to keep their manes long for breed shows but might also compete in hunters or dressage.

Whatever the reason, it is a lovely technique for keeping those flowing manes under control!

Instructions:

• Start with a clean mane that has been combed until it’s knot free.
• Dampen the mane to help with the braiding. Sometimes it’s helpful to use a spray on solution such as QuicBraid to help the braids hold better.
• Begin your braid at the top of the horse’s mane near the poll or right behind the bridlepath.
• Take three pieces of mane about 1/2″ wide. The first two passes are like a normal braid.
• When you start to braid in the third strand, add more hair (another 1/2″) to the existing strand and braid it in.
• Continue to add mane ONLY to the left hand strand and you will start to see the braid emerge at the bottom of the mane.
• When you get to the end of your horse’s neck, continue braiding the mane into a “pigtail.”
• Add some yarn into the braid and continue until the hair is too think to hold a secure braid.
• Tie off braid and then fold the braided pigtail under the braid.
• Tie off the braid by bringing one part of the string up through the braid and making a square knot with the bottom string.

Tips

• If you braid too tightly, the braid will stretch when your horse lowers his head. Make the braid a bit loose but still secure.
• Keep your hands close to the horse’s crest and directly below the part of the mane from which you are taking hair. This keeps the braid from stretching out.
• If your horse has a really thick mane you can braid it down both sides.

Video Demonstration

Checkerboard patterns are traditional quartermarks.

Quarter marks are the patterns that are back combed into your horse’s hair, generally placed over the hind quarters. They are an elegant addition to your show preparations.

Traditional patterns are checkerboards, diamonds and sharks teeth but there are stencils available that allow a host of different shapes.

Instructions

• Start with a clean horse.
• Spray the hindquarters before you start combing. Some people use water; but the pattern will hold better if you mix in some hair spray, fly spray or something similar.
• Brush the hair on the hind quarters toward the tail with a stiff body brush.
• Take a fine toothed comb, cut to the size of the pattern you want to make downward through the damp hair to make the marks.
• To make Sharks teeth brush the hair downward with a body brush then do sweeping movements toward the tail to create the effect.
• Each new brush stroke is a hatched area, and the diagrams follow on from each other.
• If you use a stencil, place it on your horse. Then take a clean, stiff brush and brush the hair straight up.
• Without moving the stencil, brush the hair backward against the way it naturally lies.
• Remove the stencil and spritz with spray gel again to “set” the mark.
• Finish up by brushing down all the hairs away from the stencil so it doesn’t look framed.

Video demonstration