Winter Grooming Tips For A Happy And Healthy Horse

As the temperature drops and the days get shorter, you might be tempted to ease up on your horse’s grooming routine. I’m here to tell you that winter grooming is just as important as it is during the warmer months, if not more so.

Grooming goes beyond aesthetics; it’s about health. Regular grooming sessions are a chance to check in on your horse’s well-being and catch any potential issues (e.g., skin conditions, scrapes, or signs of discomfort). This isn’t just about keeping them looking good, it’s about making sure they feel great too!

During winter, your horse’s coat becomes thicker to provide extra insulation, which is great. But, that plush winter coat also allows debris and moisture to hang around and, if left unmanaged, these hitchhikers can lead to skin irritations or fungal infections. Additionally, brushing spreads the horse’s natural skin oils throughout the coat, enhancing its insulating properties as well as its ability to repel water [1].

The first step in any winter grooming routine is to avoid as much dirt as you can…

Avoidance Techniques

When the weather is nice and warm, if your horse decides to go roll in the mud, it’s no big deal to pull out the hose and wash them off. However, in the winter, we want to avoid soaking our horse’s coats if at all possible as it can quickly chill the horse and possibly lead to hypothermia. Additionally, thoroughly drying a soaked winter coat takes a long time.

Below are a few techniques for helping your horse avoid as much mud and dirt as possible:

Blanketing

Putting a blanket or sheet on your horse before the storm arrives (and until things dry up) will keep the majority of their body clean and dry. This will also have the added benefit of providing a additional warmth for your horse. Click here for tips on selecting a winter blanket/sheet for your horse.

Trimming

If your horse has long hair on his patterns or under his chin, trimming this down will help avoid mud and icecicles from forming. Keeping your horse’s patterns trimmed up also helps avoid scratches.

Silicone Spray

Applying a light coating of silicone grooming spray to the legs, mane and tail will help keep dirt and mud from sticking to your horse. If you will be riding, be sure not to spray the saddle area as this will cause your saddle to slip all over the place!

Even with all tactics, your horse will still need a good grooming to stay in tip top shape…​

Essential Winter Grooming Tools

During the winter, we want to focus our grooming efforts on keeping the dirt and mud out of our horses coats to ensure they are getting the maximum benefit from the insulation it provides. In my experience, our primary weapon of choice for this battle will be a good curry comb. When selecting a curry comb for winter grooming, the most important thing to look for is long tines (see below left) thag will be able to get all the way through those long hairs to the skin. If you use the oval shaped ones (see below right), you will be able to break up surface dirt, but the short tines won’t be able to get through the fur and clear out the dirt and debris caught in there.

For brushing the large parts of our boys, I like to use a comb with thicker and more widely spaced tines, like the black and blue one shown above as the ones with finer tines don’t tend to be strong enough to break up and remove mud clumps well.

However, the curry combs with the thinner, more flexible tines like the one below work wonders on our horses’ face and legs! So, it’s good to keep both around.

Once you have finished with the curry comb(s) be sure to go over your horse with a soft brush or towel. While the curry comb breaks up and pulls our the dirt and debris fro the coat, a soft brush will wisk away anything that remains while also spreading out your horse’s natural oils to help the hair repel water.

When Washing is Required

If, after all the above, the mud and dirt is just too much for you to overcome, a bath may be in order. I find, the best method for winter bathing is to steam clean your horse. I realize this sounds funny but. when done properly, it will effectively clean your horse’s fur without completely soaking their entire body at one time.

To steam clean your horse, you need:

• A bucket of hot water…as hot as you can tolerate with your own hand
• Towels – microfiber work best
• Cooler sheet

Steps:

1. Groom your horse to remove as much dirt as possible.
2. Fill the bucket with hot water. Use one of the towels to keep the bucket covered (to retain heat) while yoh work
3. Dunk one of towels in the bucket and then wring out as much water as possible. If it is dripping, you need to wring it out more.
4. Rub the towel in small circles; go against the grain of your horse’s fur
5. Rotate/swap out the towel as it becomes dirty or too wet.
6. Put a cooler sheet over any areas of your horse that become damp.

The Round Up…

Keeping our horses groomed is essential for maintaining their health all year long. However, during the winter, it is important to keep our horses warm and dry, so using blankets, trimming, and solicone sprays will assist owners to avoid the need for a bath. Additionally, using curry combs with long tines will help breakup and pull out the dirt and mud that inevitably gets hung up in the long winter coat. If a bath does become necessary, using a steam cleaning method above will effectively wash your horse’s coat while avoiding getting them completely wet.

References:

[1] Christine Barakat. 2022. The Long & Short Of Equine Coats. Retrieved from https://equusmagazine.com/horse-care/long-short-equine-coats-31988