Horseback Riding - Grooming a Horse

Hi, my name is Coney and I am from Crestwood Farm and this is Sam and Bobby. We live in Manassas, Virginia and we are going to show you today some techniques on grooming the horse. The first tool we are using is a Currycomb and we use it to get the dirt and mud and manure up off the horse and it gets the dirt that is embedded in the horse. You use it in a circular motion and you can press down on it if you have some dried dirt or mud to get up off the horse. The next brush that we use is called a dandy brush or body brush and you can use it anywhere on the horse. You want to brush in the direction the hair grows and you can brush his hip, his belly, his shoulders and neck. You can also use it on their head as long as you have a fine bristled body brush which is what we are using here. So, it can be used anywhere on the horses body. You want to make sure you get under their belly where the girth goes because when you put the saddle on thats where the girth will go which holds the saddle on. All of the tools that we are using here today can be found at any local tack shop. The next thing that we are going to do is clean out Bobbys hooves. The hooves are the horses feet. You want to stand facing the back of the horse, push on his shoulder to get him to push his weight on his other three feet. You pick out the dirt from the bottom of his hoof using the hoof pick pointed towards the back of the horse. Its mud, caked into the horses feet or bedding or sand from the arenas, so you have to dig pretty hard to get it out. The horse has horseshoes on his feet. Those are the metal ring around the outside of his foot, and that will enable more dirt and mud to be caked in their foot. You are also checking for rocks to have become embedded in their feet. So, thats one of the purposes of cleaning out their feet.

After you clean it out you just sat it down and they will then bear their weight on it. The last thing that we are going to do is comb his forelocks and mane and tail. The forelock is the long hair on the top of his head between his ears. The mane is the long hair on his neck and his tail is the long hair down the back of his hip. When you comb it out, you want to do it just like you do your own hair, trying not to rip the hair, just comb easily and gently to separate the hairs, because they can become tangled just like a persons hair. Those are the proper ways to groom a horse.