Grooming A Horses Mane

Grooming a horses mane - Tips and Techniques...

Laying Your Horses Mane :

Keeping your horses mane on the correct side is always a problem. Traditionally horses manes are meant to lay on the off side; that's the right side of your horses neck.

But a lot if us have horses who do not have the perfect mane (ours definitely don't) and manes can vary in thickness, in length, by coarseness or in a multitude of other ways. Horses manes also vary by breed and can sometimes be a different colour to the horses body hair.

Some manes lay flat, some lay half one side and half the other, some lay as if they have a centre parting and some just like the left side better.

The usual advice is to plait it over to the right, but this only trains the mane in different directions, instead of straight down the neck.

Instead of plaiting, bunch the mane in one inch sections with bands, making sure the band is at the bottom of the hairline, next to the neck, otherwise you will be training it to stick up.

You will have to re-do each bunch regularly if your horse rubs its mane and the bunches move which means it'll be training the mane the wrong way again.

You should have about 30 little bunches along the neck and it will usually take about 3 days to work.

If your horses mane lays completely on the wrong side, bunch it this way and it should always lay on the correct side.

It is more difficult if your horse has a very wide mane line on his crest as it will usually fall on both sides. Pull it to thin it out and then bunch it to help it lay properly.

Plaiting Your Horses Mane

A picture paints a thousand words, as they say, and this video presentation will demonstrate how to plait your horse mane better than any words could.

More about Grooming Your Horse