I have decided to share one of my trade secrets. For years I tried to shorten manes by using the usual methods of pulling and thinning. Every horse I did it to hated it. Some tolerated it better than others, but every one of them exhibited stress signals varying from tossing their head to trying to bite me. At some barns where I worked the horses even needed to be sedated for it.
Since I do my best to listen to the horses and never to hurt them, I decided to do it differently. Here is a demonstration of my technique to shorten and thin a mane without yanking the hair out of the horse's neck.
First I comb the mane with a pulling comb, this little metal one works great. If it's a very thick mane I will comb it out every time I ride the horse, which will naturally thin the mane since the more combing you do the thinner the mane gets.
To actually shorten the mane, after it's combed through I will pinch a small amount of hair with one hand.
I then lift up the small amount of hair I pinched, and tease back the rest of the hair from my section by combing downward as I hold my section.
The traditional way to pull a mane would be to now take that small section, wrap it around the comb, and pull it out. Instead, I hold the section up and over to the other side of the horse's neck, and cut it with regular scissors while it's being held up.
After I make that cut I comb all the mane out again. Because I cut it while I was holding it up and over the other side of the neck, when it's combed out again all the hairs are different lengths and you can't tell I did it with scissors.
Cutting a mane with scissors is a big no-no in the many portions of the horse world, it should never look like your six year old sister got ahold of him and gave him bangs.
Doing it the way I do however, makes it look like it was pulled traditionally. It also still makes the mane behave in the normal way for braiding. I've never had anyone be able to tell I shortened it with scissors, even when I was at hunter barns and the horses needed to be braided traditionally.
Here is the video of how to do it, starring Note and his long hair.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2cfdtQ_QJ4
I hope this helps people get their horses looking show ready in a much easier and pain-free way, my horses sure are grateful we don't ever yank their hair out.
Very helpful. Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDelete