Your Grooming Box's New Year's Resolution

This post is for all you long time horse fanatics, you parents with horse crazy girls, and you first time horse owners or leasers. All of you who have Christmas money burning a hole in your pocket. We've already mildly discussed tack for the first time horse owner but what we didn't, and couldn't, discuss were the products you need (and may want) for day to day horse care. Let's see if your grooming box has everything you need to make it through this year without a third or fourth or tenth trip to the tack store.

It's still cold outside so let's start with fall and winter things!

• Curry combs - there are two main types, the ones with about 10 large hard rubber prongs on them and the ones with tons of little soft rubber bristles, for lack of a better word. If you had to get one I would suggest the one with little bristles. This one can be used on the face and legs as well as all over the body whereas the other one is strictly for the body. It is also less severe so your more ticklish horses are prone to stand more still and tolerate it better.
• Dandy Brushes - There are three main types of these. Stiff, medium, and soft. If you had to get one I would get the mid grade but I prefer to have 2 and include the soft brush. The stiff brush gets off a lot more dander but otherwise doesn't have any extreme benefits. The medium brush helps you flick away all the dander and the soft brush smoothes the coat. Also, in the winter time horses get those ugly curry comb paths from the dust that sits on and under their staticy winter coats. The soft brush helps eliminate those.
• Baby Wipes/Cloths - If you're very OCD like I am, the soft brush doesn't get off enough of the dust trails from my horse's coat. To completely get rid of them either keep baby wipes on hand or keep a cloth and get it slightly damp. Swipe them over the marks and the wetness picks up any left over dirt. Not a necessity for every day barn life but for any fall and winter showing where your horse is not body clipped this is an investment you should probably make.
• Cooler - No. Not an ice chest to keep your Dr. Peppers cold. A cooler is a cotton horse blanket that is used to wick away moisture. Since our barn and a vast majority of my readers are based in Texas, you should know that we get those random 65-70 degree days. Our horses sweat especially hard when we ride them on those days and the temperatures drop quickly as dusk approaches. On those days you may want or need to rinse off your horse. This is not ok if the temperature is going to be below 70 in the next 12 hours. Unless you have a cooler or a lot of towels and some elbow grease. Use the cooler until your horse is mostly dry and then allow it to air dry the rest of the way. I would follow this with a blanket just to be safe. Again, this is not a necessity but it's a nice thing to be able to turn to. Especially for the show horse.
• Cowboy Magic/Show Sheen - Since we can't bathe our horses in the cooler weather but we need to grow out those manes and tails, Show Sheen or Cowboy Magic can be your best friend. Show Sheen comes in a bottle similar to fly spray and technically can be used all over the body (except for saddle areas) for a brilliant shine. I am not a fan of Show Sheen on the body because I prefer a good brushing which, when done properly and consistently, can give you the same, and actually better, results. Cowboy Magic is a leave-in conditioner that can be used on the mane and tail. It has a more pleasant odor to it and doesn't have as many harmful effects as Show Sheen (such as leaving the horse with an inability to sweat or saddle slippage if used in the saddle area).
• Standing Wraps, Leg Quilts and Gold Bond - While not technically a grooming aid, you might notice that during the winter your horse's legs are puffy and swollen. Clean and dry the legs and apply a little bit of gold bond powder to your quilts or the leg directly. Wrap the horse's legs starting at the front, moving around the outside of the leg to the back and then continuing to the inside and back to the front. Gold bond can also be used on any flaky skin your horse might get around the elbows and withers.
• Micro Tek - They make a lot of products but their anti fungal spray is the best for Thoroughbreds in the winter. Many horses, but TBs especially, are prone to skin ick of several varieties. Rain rot and dry crusty skin being the most common. Spray on Micro Tek and let it do it's magical stuff. This is not a shampoo so there does not have to be any water involved.

Now for Spring and Summer things! I won't go over the brushes again but there are several different products we can use once the weather gets warm enough to bathe.

• Slick N Easy - The shedding season will be upon us before you know it. While a good shedding blade never hurt anybody, the Slick N Easy block is a mega life saver. Curry combs make the hair fly in every direction. The Slick N Easy is, for all intensive purposes, like a pumus stone. It is really brittle and also a bit like sand paper. It grabs hair and dirt alike and flings it aside. When it gets too dirty to work properly you can just scrape it against the nearest hard thing till your edge is no longer coated in dirt. This is not an everlasting tool. It starts off being about a 3"X5" block and slowly dissolves into nothing. It should last a horse through it's whole shedding season but every horse is different. At about $5, I'd call this an essential.
• Shampoo - If you buy no other shampoo from a horse store this summer, buy blue dawn. It works like all your expensive shampoos that advertise a brilliant shine. It gets the yellow out of your gray pony's bottom and makes white socks shine. Aside from those benefits it kills fleas on your local barn (or house) dog if you're feeling generous enough to give them a bath. And price per unit of volume is completely unmatchable by anything at the tack store. ANYTHING. If you want some cool shampoos and have some money to splurge Mane and Tail is always a good go to. Cowboy Magic makes a shampoo and conditioner and a yellow out shampoo. Quick Silver is a really good buy too for horses with only white markings. A little bit will last you a lifetime although the price for the bottle you get can sometimes cause you to think twice. I always keep a bottle handy. Actually, I've had the same bottle for every horse I've ever owned. A little life lesson here for you: there is no such thing as hosing a horse off too many times during the summer. There IS such thing as giving a horse a bath (with shampoo and conditioner) too many times. Once, MAYBE twice a month is enough. Too much more and you'll find your horse with a dull coat because it has no natural oils in it and also dry irritated skin.
• Sweat Scrapers - Invest in a good sweat scraper. They are SO cheap. And while it isn't a real problem for most horses to be put away wet, some horses are prone to developing rain rot easily. Rain rot is caused by the skin getting and staying wet. So a stalled horse can still develop rain rot by excessive hosing without sweat scraping.
• Fly Spray - This is the only thing that might keep you running back and forth to the tack store till the employees know your name. While it's always enticing to buy the bottle because it has the spray top and is super cheap compared to the concentrate next to it on the shelf, don't get stuck in the here and nows. Buy the spray top bottle the first time if you must and see how long it lasts you. Probably 2 weeks if you use it sparingly. Multiply $9 by at least 8 because we have at least 16 weeks of fly season and that's $72. Now let's look at the concentrate. It's $30 or so. But how many uses does it have in it (or how many bottles does it say it makes)? I believe that one bottle of concentrate can make 6-8 bottles of fly spray. Hey! 8... That number just appeared before somewhere recently. So there's $30 (or $60 if you have to buy two) or there's $72. You're welcome. I know that math can be hard to do. Did I also mention that buying the big bottle means less trips to the store?! WINNING.
• Hoof Oil/Polish - This one was tricky to decide whether to put with summer or winter. Texas weather is crazy. We have hot, cold, humid, dry, wet, etc. These changes are especially hard on hooves. Hoof polish or oil is a good thing to get especially in the dry summer to keep horse's hooves from cracking and breaking. While most people think that the dryer the better as far as hooves go, they actually do require a good bit of moisture to be healthy. Too wet is also a bad thing, don't get me wrong. If you've got an extra bit of cash, either throw it at some good hoof oil or a good hoof supplement with biotin, zinc, and magnesium.
• Fly Masks - At my old barn we never used to use fly masks. This year with the boys I experienced a nasty case of eye boogers that I was pretty sure were contagious because they all got them at the same time. While I was assured it was just a case of allergies, the flies were swarming the eye boogers and making everyone a little annoyed. So keep your little baby wipes or cloths on hand to wipe away eye gunk and throw a fly mask on your horse to keep them comfortable. It can't hurt right?

There are TONS upon TONS of things you can put in your tack box. This list doesn't even cover the list of medical things you should have in your first aid kit or really even in your show box, but for day to day things you should be set. I didn't mention hoof pick here but that should go without saying. Hopefully your manic trip to the tack store just received a little more direction! Good luck and happy New Year!