Tail care
Tail Care and Grooming Techniques
Tails are a symbol of beauty and function - so you want your horse's tail to shine and be functional.
This section has articles about tail care, so that your horse can stay lovely and useful!
How to keep a white tail white!
This is a particular challenge for mares, but with a few techniques and pointers, every light tailed horse can stay stain free. Read more here!
Tails get dirty from lot of things...wet bedding, rolling in the dirt or grass, urine (mares...), products that act as glue for dirt, you name it. It's always a challenge to keep a healthy, and clean, and white tail. Start from the inside out, with good nutrition. A well balanced diet, paired with diligent daily grooming and the best horse grooming products will keep your horse show ring ready all the time.
The key to keeping your horse's tail blinding white is to first gently clean it, and then create a barrier to prevent future stains. Gentle and effective products will not harm the delicate hair and create an inviting surface for future stains. Diligent use of conditioners, detangles, and clean stalls will go along way to preventing the yellow, green, and brown stains that often haunt tails. If you are lucky enough to have a horse with a darker tail, stains are not as easily seen, but the damage stains can do will be felt with your fingers.
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A lot of us like those blueing shampoos, and have used them with success. Shapley's EquiTone Shampoos are designed to work with your horse's natural hair color, from white to black and every shade in between, to gently remove stains and enhance the color without damaging the hair. This is a great first step at removing existing stains.
Once you have used a stain removing shampoo, carry on to the protection phase to repel future tail stains.
Conditioners can help create that necessary barrier between your horse's tail and stains.
A good conditioner will seal the hair shaft, create more shine, and soften the tail hairs.
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Detangles and shine products, like Magic Sheen, are daily conditioners and stain repellents that can be used wet or dry. They also serve to add another layer of shine - which is great for the show ring to really wow the judges (and your competition!). Quick tip here - use Magic Sheen detangler after you bathe your horse, and the post bath rolling dirt and dust will slide off. This also keeps your horse's tail blinding white!
Tail care secrets
The tail is one of those things that most horse owners really want to preserve. One way to do that is to make sure it's clean, tangle free, and well maintained. Every tail, no matter the horse, will need a good shampoo at some point. You have options in the shampoo department - go for a Hi Shine Shampoo to thoroughly clean and add shine, or play up your horse's natural hair color with EquiTone Shampoo. The frequency of horse bath days depends on your horse, his living environment (inside or outside), and the climate! Sometimes, you might find the need to wash only the tail and not do a full bath. This is great for winter time spa days - you can brighten the tail without doing a full bath.
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When it's tail washing time, it's easy to gather a few tools and get going. Use a dollop of shampoo dissolved in warm water in a bucket. This is a great way to just dunk the tail up to the tail bone in bubbly water and then massage everything in. Then you can use a sponge to add some of your Hi Shine foamy mixture to the upper part of the tail.
Another choice would be to wet the tail, top to bottom, and then use shampoo in your hands to massage in. This is best for the EquiTone Shampoos. Working top to bottom lets the shampoo really do it's job well and easily.
Either way, it's very important to spend a lot of time working your shampoo of choice gently into the tail. At the tail bone, you also need to spend your time working it into the base of the hairs and the skin. While you are there, do another inspection of the tail bone looking for bumps, lumps, scrapes, tumors, bugs and anything new that has popped up.
The tail bone is also the area that you devote your time to rinsing, and rinsing really well. Suds left here can irritate the sensitive skin and cause rubbing and tail damage. Start at the top and rinse down.
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A lot of us are concerned with losing tail hairs - and just like our own hair, it does come out naturally, and no amount of product or tail bag or pampering will prevent it. So don't panic if your brush has some hairs in it! When the tail is damp, you can apply a light spray of Magic Sheen to make combing or brushing tangle free.