Extremely Dirty Horses & How To Proceed… Or Not!

Hi there!  Today I’m going to talk to you about dirty horses and show you an extreme example, one that I ordinarily would not clip, however discretion is often required and in this case I realised that it was for the horses greater good that I should do my best to proceed. 

👉 Ordinarily it’s straight no, I wouldn’t dream of clipping a horse this dirty however there is the odd occasion that discretion needs to be used and I take the decision to, I make the decision to clip the horse. 

There wasn’t going to be another opportunity to come back and see this horse, he was clearly uncomfortable and he needed all the help he could get. His owner wasn’t in a position to be able to bath him, she’d had an injury and was in a tricky situation herself so I made the decision to actually clip him. The horse in the video is in his 30s, he has arthritis in his fetlocks which is why he’s moving quite a lot plus a few scabs and itchiness so you’ll see him moving his weight around quite a lot. 

Now this is something to take into consideration especially with older horses because if they’re unable to hold their weight as a normal horse, a fit and healthy horse would, you have to be extra careful that they don’t stand on you while they’re trying to find their balance or whether they stand on you if they lose their balance. So here I did go in to introduce myself to him but he wasn’t really that interested. Sometimes older horses, they save their energy and are happy to eat, they don’t necessarily fuss as much as maybe a younger inquisitive horse. That said, not all old horses are as placid, of course some of them want to have a nosy just as much as others. 

 I had been informed that he’d been clipped hundreds of times in the past by the same person who had done a great job which would explain why he was quite happy and comfortable for me to proceed. Now this was one of the primary factors that determined whether I was going to proceed with clipping him or not. 

👉 This coat was only ever going to come off with a heavy duty high powered mains clipper. I do have some A5s with me that I used in this video just to try and see you know how they were going to respond to the coat but ultimately I knew that they wouldn’t touch it. But for display purposes I wanted to show you here the difference between the A5 clipper, the power, this is corded however because the coat is actually wet, it’s full of dirt and dust and sand right through I’m just unable to make an opening. Sometimes when the top of the coat is wet and dirty but the underside is clean you can make an opening of sorts and then proceed to clip but it was just impossible to create a big enough opening to get through this coat. Here you will notice I changed direction of clipper. 

Sometimes this is a useful technique to try with the horse that stood in front of you. This was never going to work on this horse but I wanted to show it you for demonstration purposes anyway. So now we have the heavy duty high powered A2 style clippers. These require tensioning so you’ll see me every now and again just adjusting the tensioning. Now when you’re working with such a thick dirty and heavy coat the tensioning is more likely to loosen off more often than it ordinarily would. This is because the coat creates resistance against the blade so it loosens the tension off more than normal. This super boy let me use the bigger clippers round near his head. 

👉 Just remember to take extra care because they are heavier and they can do a lot of damage if you slip. And of course we gave him regular breaks to move his legs because he was getting stiff so something to think about especially with your older horses. Allow them to move, give them a break in the stable if they need for five minutes and then carry on. It should be noted that this is an example of a horse that really you shouldn’t clip ordinarily. Crucially the learning that I’d like you to take away from this video is of an example of a coat that you just wouldn’t clip. 

The contrast, look how dirty it is in comparison to the coat underneath. Clipping this type of coat physically is going to be so much more demanding than a clean coat. It’s going to take you three times as long and it can be uncomfortable for the horse. I hope you enjoyed this video tutorial and I look forward to seeing you in the next lesson.

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➡️ Want more freebie tips on horse clipping? Head over HERE to download your free ‘Checklist For Successful Clipping’ today.

PS: Reading subtle cue’s when it comes to clipping horses is something that I cover in module 2 of our Budding Horse Barber Course 

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