How to Groom a Horse + What's in my Grooming Kit + Tips for Grey Ponies AD | This Esme

[Music] [Music] moments like this hello everybody this is me and for today's video i thought i would do another one for my beginners series which is a how to groom your horse i'm going to be talking through all of my grooming brushes what they're called what they're used for and how you use them so here i have a slightly dirty casper today usually every single morning when i get him up from the field his head his legs basically everywhere that his rug doesn't cover is absolutely plastered in mud the one day i decided to do a grooming video he decides not to roll so his head isn't too bad it's a little bit yellow stained in places but at least it's not plastered with mud so that's going to make my life a little bit easier today also with today's video i thought i would add in some tips and tricks for keeping your grey horses looking more white and less yellow or brown because that's the color you tend to end up looking with all the mud and stable stains especially in the winter it's not a good look is it casper so um i've got a few hints and tips that i'll give and also if you already know how to groom a horse i thought this would be a fun and satisfying video because it's so nice to see a horse that's so dirty and then magically then become nice and clean um because i know you guys love my cleaning videos so anyway the first thing i thought i'd talk about is why grooming is so important well obviously it gets your halls looking nice and pretty and clean but it's also really good for a welfare point of view and it's good to make sure that they don't have any skin irritations and this is something that mickey has quite often so when i'm grooming him it's really good to check over to see if he has any patches that are a little bit scary that i might need to moisturize it's also good to check for any cuts that they might have gotten in the field and it's also good to see if there's any areas on them that are hot that might be swollen where they might have been maybe kicked in the field or injured it's really good to be able to just check your horse over and when you've done this multiple times and get to know your horse you'll really be able to see very quickly if something's different or something's wrong um my biggest tip i'd say in the winter for keeping your horse clean if they are turned out and go out on the field is wearing a rug so today is actually quite a mild day it's not too chilly i've just got a t-shirt and a light jacket on um so casper just has a new zealand on at the moment because it really is quite mild um so even in the spring we have a lot of rain i just like to pop this on it's just like a rain sheet really so it doesn't have any fillings so even when it is a little bit warmer outside they won't get really hot and also just keeps them dry um so i'm gonna take this off and we're gonna have a little look see what's underneath because sometimes it's it's not as good as you think it's gonna be because um sometimes i don't know how but casper gets mud underneath his rug like here there's a little bit that i must have missed the other day when i groomed him um because we had a bit of a quick groom yesterday and then um especially where his legs are his legs probably get the most muddy so let's see what we have oh you're not looking too bad casper you're not looking too bad but there are some improvements we need to make my other tips for keeping a horse clean in the winter is to actually clip them my horse is especially casper because these are connemaras that he's a native breed he gets very hairy very fluffy in the winter and when that hair gets wet and gets muddy it just doesn't really dry off on the top sort of layer so i find clipping him helps me a lot especially down here he likes to get so many stable stains so it means that i can wash him with some warm water and then quickly dry him off and then he dries so much quicker because he has a less a very smaller coat because he's clipped um his clip is growing out a little bit but because it's winter i'm not going to bother reclipping him until we need to so he's a tiny bit fluffy but he's so much better than he would have been if he wasn't clipped um so the first thing i'm actually going to do is i'm going to wash off his legs with the hose pipe obviously if it's the summer or the spring and your horse's legs aren't muddy you won't need to do this but i'm going to because it's also good to check if he still has his shoes on because especially with the mud sometimes um the mud likes to sort of just pull their shoes off so um i can't actually see his shoes right now so i'm gonna have to check if they're still still on caspy hey he looks completely asleep are you awake oh i love you all right so i have now tied casper up so he's all ready for me to wash off his hooves um so here i have the hose pipe because it is cold water it doesn't matter too much because it is just going to be on his hooves so he's not going to get absolutely freezing cold from the cold water but obviously if you're going to do a full body wash it's quite nice to use warmer water instead so casper is so good at having his hooves wash he literally just stands there it's so good [Applause] [Music] all right so the first thing i'm going to do when grooming casper is actually pick out his hooves so i have actually two different types of hoof pick here this one is a two in one so you've got the hoof brush that you can use for brushing out their hooves and also have the little pick at the top here personally i actually quite like to use a hoof pick on its own and then this isn't actually a proper hoof brush this is a washing up scrubbing brush this is a little hack if you like i like to use these just because they are so much bigger the bristles are pretty hard as well so it's really good at getting the tough mud that doesn't want to come off their hooves especially if it's dried on as well and so that's what i'm going to be using so yeah if you want to use something bigger use the washing out brush all right so when picking up your horse's hooves um what i like to do is have a little feel of his leg make sure there aren't any lumps or bumps make sure there isn't any heat or anything different and usually when i do this he's quite good um and he picks it up straight away he didn't then so there again kiss me this one good boy okay so casper can be a little bit naughty sometimes there we go uh excuse me mister but anyway what i like to do is um when you're picking out the horse's hooves on the left you hold it with your left hand and pick out with your right hand and then on the other side you hold the hoof with your right hand and then pick out with your left hand it feels a little bit strange when you first get used to it because obviously i'm right-handed so this feels more natural for me to pick it out with my right hand that is the proper way you're supposed to do it but honestly whatever works best for you so there we go just make sure all the mud's um gone so this area here is called the frog so that bit you do not pick out that is actually part of their hoof you just want to get rid of all the mud that's on the sole as you can see casper is due the farrier he needs some new shoes soon because they are very worn away we've done a lot of a lot of hacking recently on the road there we go just brush away the mud and then your horse's hoof is picked out so um this is really good to check for any stones that are in there also check this their shoes nice and tight on um you can also check um the condition of the shoes so yes casper does need the fairies soon and um also you don't want any stones to be in there because that'll be very uncomfortable for your horse so you can just pick them out and yeah there we go good boy time to do the rest all right so here is another one just getting rid of all of the mud there's quite a few stones in here as well because we've been doing a bit of hacking i try and pick out who's after hacking but had to lead him up the other day on the track so always pick down away from me and then got my brush again and brush it out all right so this is what my hands look like after picking out casper's hooves as you can see it's a bit of a mucky job but at least i know that casper still has all of his shoes on and his hooves are nicely picked out alright so this is actually my fancy grooming kit this is the one that i take to shows or when the horses go out in the van i take this one so casper's actually the last horse i took out in the van so um they are a little bit dirty because he was the last horse i used them on anyway so all of my horses actually have their own grooming kit so i have four in total and this is just for hygiene reasons it's nice to have your own brushes for your own horse if not if you're using the same brush on multiple horses it's just not the best especially with mickey having his sensitive skin and his skin conditions it wouldn't be very nice using that on joey or casper so anyway i thought i would do a little bit of a grooming box tour because i have quite a few brushes in here um so what are we going to use first on casper so first i'm actually going to be using a curry comb there are lots of different types of curry comb so this is a plastic curry comb i love these ones this is the lumiere wizard brush i believe and then um i have another one here this is a rubber curry comb this also has like little massage bits on which i love especially for molting season this is really useful um and even after rides i just love to give them a bit of a massage with this i'll put that back in and then where is the last one here we have another rubber curry comb this one just has smaller little spikes on it which nice and soft like i can use this on my fingers but this again is great for getting mud off but today i'm going to be using my plastic one just because this is personally my favorite and i'm going to be using this to get all of the dry mud of casper personally my sort of tip for cleaning gray horses or just any colored horses is if the mud's wet use water to get it off if the mud's dry use a brush to get it off because if you try to get wet mud of a horse with a brush then it's not really going to work much like you are going to get a bit off but it's going to get your brushes absolutely horrible and also it's just going to spread the mud around it's just not the best so with dry mud like this as you can see it comes in little clumps i like to use a plastic curry comb and it just gets it off really easily um i do be trying to be quite gentle on my horse's legs with this but it is again quite soft like i can bang it against my hand and things again casper likes to get a lot of these little mud clumps on his tummy so i'm just going to very gently go down here also when you're grooming a horse never kneel because if your horse spooks or jumps at something they might land on you so make sure that um you just crouch instead so it means you can quickly jump out of the way in case your horse does decide to move so i'm just gonna finish off doing his legs when i wash his legs off i usually try not to go above the knee i usually go around up to here just where the mud goes because i don't want his legs to get too wet especially if i'm putting boots on him later if i'm tacking him up or something here he's got a little bit of mud here especially on his back legs so next i have my rubber curry comb and i'm going to be using this in circular motions on casper so it's always good when you're brushing them to start at the head end and then go down to the tail because this means that you're brushing all of the sort of dirt in one direction rather than it getting it going everywhere also it then goes in the same direction as the horse's coat so i'm going to be using this in a circular motion all over him and what this does is it actually lifts up all the dirt that's stuck in the coat obviously casper's clipped so there isn't too much and he's also rugged but here you can see in this area where he isn't clipped um a lot of dirt and dust is really coming up here also you have to be quite sensitive on their back when using this um just because you don't want to be putting loads of pressure on their like spine area and so just make sure you're a little bit gentle in those areas i like to be a little bit more rough on his tummy just because that's where it's usually absolutely filthy because all the mud from his legs splatter up there this is also really fun to use on their butt because as you can see look this he looks clean there's actually quite a lot of dirt coming up all the dead skin and grime it really does like to show itself when you do this next i'm going to be using a dandy brush so this is a brush that has thicker bristles they most commonly look a little bit more like this because of these brushes and you have a bit more of a flicking motion so this is to flick off all of the dust and dirt so you use a dandy brush if your horse is kept out in the field but if your horse is kept in a stable then you use a body brush instead so this is often a lot softer and the reason why body brushes like the main difference between them is because body brushes actually remove all of the grease and the dirt and the oils in your horse's coat which is good to keep in if your horse is kept in the field because then it protects them a little bit more but if you're in a stable it doesn't matter as much so because casper is kept in the field i'm going to be using my dandy brush also with me here i have a metal curry comb this is a two in one because it can also be used as a sweat scraper which is great when you wash your horse because it gets all of the water off but today i'm actually going to be using it um for well with my dandy brush because what you do is you go like this and you flick all the dust away so this basically kind of cleans the brush so every few sort of flicks that you do when grooming um you can flick off all the dust just so then you're using a clean-ish brush so here i'm just flicking up all of the dust that we originally got up to the surface using the curry comb [Music] next i'm going to be using my face brush which is very easy to tell which one is because it's nice and soft and it's also very small as well but if you don't have a face brush then you can also use a body brush on them too because it's nice and soft it's just a little bit bigger so it's a bit more difficult to get all the nooks and crannies and areas on their face so anyway time to give caspy's face a bit of a brush when brushing a horse's face a little hack i have is to actually undo this latch here and so what it means is that i can actually get under here a lot easier when grooming his face i try to be as gentle as i possibly can and casper sometimes looks like he's gonna fall asleep when i do this he finds it really relaxing he's not the biggest fan of having his ears brushed or touched are you mate when we first got him he was really head shy and wouldn't let me touch his face or brush his face at all he's still a little bit more sensitive but we're getting there and gasp brushing a horse's face is actually probably one of the most important places that you need to groom especially if you're going to tack up and ride them and this is because you don't want it to be all muddy and horrible and dusty where the tack goes obviously the bridle goes in the horse's head and also the saddle goes on their back so those are the two key areas that you have to make sure and nice and clean before you tack up if not your horse is gonna get some rubs and that's not gonna be very comfortable for you is it so i'm gonna make sure he's nice and clean good boy next i have my mane and tail brush which is pretty self-explanatory use on the mane and the tail um so a little top tip i have is if you're grooming your mane and tail i would recommend using some moan and tail conditioner or detangler and this is really good because when you put it in the main just makes it so much easier to brush especially if your horse's mane and tail is so thick like casper's i swear casper has the amount of hair on his tail as like three horses and he also always likes to bring in shavings in his tail leaves everything um also if you're planning on plaiting your horse or braiding your horse before a show i would recommend not using mane and tail detangler because that makes um your horse's mane and tail really slippery so if you try to plat them or braid them then um they're more likely to fall out um so don't do that also it's good to have a slightly greasy mane when you're plaiting as well so they stick better you don't want a nice clean one again because they're more likely the braids to come out so anyway i'm going to spray his mane and tail and give that a little bit of a brush also if your horse has a really thin mane and tail it's not very good to brush them every single time you groom because if not that's going to be pulling out bits of hair and it's just going to make it thinner and thinner i'd recommend only doing that on special occasions but because caspar's is so thick i just do it as often as i want good boy casper gets a little bit sensitive with spray so um he did put his ears back at me hey you're not the biggest fan are you but um he's a lot better with it now when we first got him he was not the biggest fan but he's a lot better now he tolerates it now let's say that so because casper has quite a short mane it's quite easy to brush through i've also tried to thin it out as much as possible but it's grown quite a lot since then so i might need to give you a little bit of a name neaten up at some point hey caspy um but because it's not too naughty um i managed to brush it quite easily but if your horse has a longer naughtier mane it's always good to start off at the bottom and then gradually work your way up that's the best way to try not to rip as many hairs out as possible but yeah casper's because he's a native and he's a connemara i don't know if it's a connemara thing or if it's just a casper thing but um he has quite a curly mane which looks quite funny when it is shorter and thinner you don't notice it as much but when he used to have a really long lane down to here it was so wavy and curly and you can kind of see that coming back a little bit now but it's just a lot easier to maintain during the winter when it's a bit shorter i'm sorry about the part i'm so sorry let's do your fall look too mate there we go now it is tail time and casper's tail is absolutely disgusting so i think today i might actually give it a bit of a wash i am going to brush it first and show you how i brush it when caspar's mane and tail is really dirty i don't really like to use made and tail detangle on it just because i find that the um it makes all the dirt sort of stick to it a little bit more and it just ends up his main looking kind of brown yellow which isn't the best when he's supposed to look gray but i am going to use it just because i need to get these knots out and it is impossible without a little bit of the main and tail detangler but i'm going to try and just use it on the top parts of his tail which are a little bit cleaner so anyway i like to brush casper's tail in sections it's always best to start at the bottom again if you don't want to rip too many of the hairs out so i just get like a little clump like this which is absolutely horrible it's got so much mud in and i just gently try and do the ends and gradually work my way up uh this usually takes me quite a while because his tail is so thick he's a little bit of a rapunzel horse so uh yeah as you can see i have to be a little bit violent when i'm brushing him i have to do it quite hard because if not the knots just don't come out um so there we go we have one section with the knots removed and then slowly i will grab more and more pieces of his tail and bring it into my d knotting clump um also when you're grooming your horse's tail it's always good to stand to the side in case they get a little bit agitated or you brush a knot out and they're not the biggest fan of that they can um it depends on your horse's temperament they can kick out obviously casper i've had for almost seven years now so i know him really well and he's not one that tends to kick but it's always best to be safer than sorry um usually if a horse is going to kick and casper does a few warning signs like he pins his ears back at me or he starts stamping his hooves to tell me hey mate i'm not happy but no it would be very out of character for him to kick but especially if you're grooming a horse that you don't know very well or just just in case it's always good to stand to the side because you never know they might decide to swing a hoof at you now if you own a horse that isn't a grey you have probably now finished hello caspy you interested what i've got here in my hands because if you do own a grey horse then you'll need a lot of this um if everyone wondering how much shampoo i have uh i have quite a few of these very kindly gave me their brights white shampoo so if you have a grey horse i'd recommend using a blue or purple shampoo this is kind of like a violety color which is great because this removes all the yellow stains um so because it is the winter i don't want to give casper a full wash because you might get a little bit chilly here i actually have a bucket of warm water that i've got from the house so i'm very nice to you cassidy it's nice and warm for you so what i find is casper has little patches of stable stains that he gets in the stables so basically a bit of poo and wee that he's been sitting here or lying down in overnight yes i know i'm embarrassing you so anyway um uh he's not too bad he's got tiny bit on his face it's usually on his legs so this upper leg here he's got some back here he's got a massive patch it's always on their back legs here so what i'm gonna do is i'm gonna get a little bit of shampoo a little bit of water put on a sponge give him a wash off rinse it off dry him off and then hopefully by then he'll be looking a bit cleaner lastly i'm just going to give his tail a bit of a rinse obviously this is not something i do every day in my grooming routine but because you know this is also a how i keep my grey horses clean i don't want you guys to be like oh his tail's dirty you've missed a spot that kind of thing because i want the after of today's video for him to be looking sparking sparkling clean and white as you can see i've rinsed it a few times now we're not getting too many brown bubbles usually when you get the brown bubbles you know that you're cleaning it quite well because you're actually getting the dirt off we're getting there i don't think it will be perfectly white i might have to brush it like clean it a few times to get it to that stage but we're not doing any shows or competitions at the moment and he's enjoying very much just being on the field and being a bog monster all right guys because casper has been so good i'm just gonna give him some treats um also grooming casper absolutely loves sometimes i feel like he gets dirty on purpose just so i spend a long session grooming him because it's great for bonding as well especially if you have a new horse or a horse that you're getting to know grooming is great for that um so anyway casper is now clean obviously i don't do the whole tail washing full-on leg wash with him every time i groom him because if not that would take me for ages i only really do that if i'm gonna be doing like a photo shoot or something and i want him looking perfectly clean or if i'm going to like a competition or something like that um so anyway um yeah sometimes if he just has like a small little stain maybe on his neck i'll use a stain remover a horsey stain remover don't use like your washing up stain removers don't use that use a horsey one you can buy them from most tack shops i just buy whatever one my tack shop has they will really do the same job so i just spray that on his neck or wherever the dirty patch is and wipe off and then rinse off with some water afterwards and dry them off that's great if you don't want to have to get a whole bucket of water and shampoo and things so anyway guys i really hope you enjoyed today's video now casper is looking sparkling clean or as clean as i can possibly get him for being in the middle of winter and me not wanting to him to get too cold or to do a full bath you really want that treat so anyway guys thank you so much for watching today's video if you're new or have not done so already please like and subscribe because it really does help me out and i really do appreciate it let me know in the comments below what other beginner series videos you would like to see thanks again for watching and i'll see you all next time bye oh you are such a good boy such a good boy yes yeah should we do some riding now yeah thank you [Music] you

Channel: This Esme

Views: 198,690

Rating: 4.9611096 out of 5

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Id: 7XEjQD7-mVo

Length: 25min 50sec (1550 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 22 2021