Horse care © Benkert
How to groom the tail
Grooming a tail by hand is the classic way to care for the long hair. In times when there was no tail conditioner spray, this procedure ensured that the tail looked neat without too many hairs being torn out. Today the grooming a tail by hand is still good. This way you keep very thick tails, which can hardly be brushed, neat and give the tail volume. However, you should only brush out the tail on special occasions, for example before a demonstration or a tournament, because during this procedure a lot of hairs fall out of the tail.
How does grooming work?
- Tie the horse in a quiet, fly-free place or protect it with a fly blanket so that the horse does not pull your tail away all the time.
- Always stand next to the horse's croup for the reading, never directly behind the horse. In this way you can stand safely even if the horse gets a fright or kicks at a fly.
- For grooming the tail by hand, grab the tail with your left hand just below the tail root. Pull fine strands of hair with your right hand out of the tuft in your left hand, each with about 3- 10 hairs.
- Start with the shorter hairs at the side of the tail root and work your way to the long hairs in the lower part of the tail root.
- Do this until you have untangled all the hairs of the tail in this way. The procedure may take 15 minutes depending on the thickness of the tail and the degree of knotting.
- After grooming the tail by hand, you should carefully comb the tail again with a brush. This will straighten the hair.
- Grooming the tail by hand is relatively time-consuming and removes all dead hairs from the tail. Therefore, there is usually a lot of hair lying on the ground after the grooming. You can collect these hairs and, for example, make jewellery from them.
