Smarten up for Spring!

With spring just around the corner, for many owners, the showring beckons.  A hairy, muddy, scruffy horse that seems light years away from being pristine and beautiful! But if we start working on the animal’s coat now, it will soon be looking ship shape ready for the spring show season!

Enhancing natural shine

Regular grooming to remove dust, dirt and grease reduces the likelihood of a dull coat, and helps remove dead hairs. It is also important to be vigilant about washing off sweat after exercise, as this can irritate the coat and cause scurfiness. A grooming mitt like Stephens’ ‘Sheepskin Grooming Mitt’ helps promote circulation and polishes the coat, which can enhance the animal’s natural colour. Remember to use some elbow grease too! Generally speaking, the condition of a horse’s coat can be a telling sign of its general level of health, so if good nutrition and regular grooming are not improving coat health, there could be issues such as worm burden or metabolic imbalance playing a part. (Particularly if the horse is older, when hormones can play a bigger part).

When bathing to prepare for a show Cowboy Magic’s ‘Rosewater Shampoo’ is ideal containing silk conditioners, gently dissolving dirt and cleaning the hair without damaging it. The silk molecules reflect prism light, giving the hair a rich, natural shine!

If you haven’t got time to bath your horse, you can cheat with a shine-enhancing coat spray. Absorbine’s ‘Miracle Groom’ conditions, deodorises, detangles and shines in one spray-based application. Because it is used without soap or water it is a handy ‘quick fix’ for last minute tidy ups, or perhaps if your horse is being visited pre-sale.

Getting the diet right

Shampoos and coat enhances are all well and good, but a shiny coat comes from within. So providing a nutrient-packed diet of good quality feed. Choose good quality forage and compound feeds, and look out for those with added oil. Many people also use a supplement with targeted ingredients such as Omega Fatty Acids. For enhanced coat colour, look out for dietary products containing Lecithin, which supplies phospholipids to enhance healthy skin and a deeper coat colour.

Improving coat colour

There are various products around that intensify coat colour. One is Quic’s ‘Black Shampoo’; this product reduces ‘redness’ or sun-bleached coats, and brings out the ‘true black’ colour in a very dark horse. The company also produces ‘Quic Silver Shampoo’, which creates incredible silver and golden highlights. As a colour-intensifying shampoo, it intensifies all natural colours within the coat but is obviously designed for lighter-coloured horses. Again, regular grooming to remove dust, dirt and grease reduces the likelihood of a dull coat, and helps remove dead hairs that can ‘dull’ the colour.

Stain removal

Stabled horses always manage to get really dirty. Some seem to revel in getting muck into the most difficult-to-clean places, while others are content to just like down, rather than roll in muck! Grey horses are undoubtedly the most difficult horses to keep clean as their coats and tails can look ‘yellowy’. Choose a bathing product or stain remover specifically for this problem. Cowboy Magic’s ‘Shine In, Yellow Out’ neutralises yellow stains and brightens hair colour, and is massaged into wet hair, and soaked and rinsed. Ideal for mucky greys!

So lets get spring cleaning our horses and set for the spring shows! To find out more about the wide range of grooming products available from World Wide Tack including Cowboy Magic, Absorbine and Quic visit the website at www.worldwidetack.com or Tel: 01825 841 303.