How to take care of your horse’s winter coat

The fields are getting muddier, and the coat of your horse is getting thicker. The perfect recipe for a dirty, hard to clean coat.  But with these tips, taking care of your horse’s winter coat has never been so easy!

Tip 1) Get your grooming game on

Grooming is super important to keep your horse’s coat in a good condition, in winter it even needs some extra care. Start by removing most of the dirt with the middle hard body brush. The bristles of this brush are closer in the middle to get as deep as possible in the coat. After you’ve loosened up the dirt, you can remove this with the middle hard brush. You will immediately see the difference in the coat. But, we’re not there yet. Grab your overall brush hard to give the winter coat some shine. If you want extra shine, you can grab the sheepskin grooming glove. The vegan sheepskin glove works like a magnet to capture the last pieces of mud.

Tip 2) Groom after riding

After riding, your horse might have some dried-up sweat in his coat. This attracts quite some sand, giving the impression your horse is dirty. To avoid this, you can use the middle brush medium to do a fast overbrushing after the training. If the sweat is not completely dried up yet, we advise you to use the middle hard brush first.

Tip 3) Check the skin condition of your horse

Even though it might be hard in the long coat, it’s very important to check the skin condition of your horse regularly to make sure he’s not suffering from skin infections such as rain rot or mites. You should also be very careful with the legs as the mud fever bacteria loves some wet and muddy environments. Therefore, try to keep the legs dry and clean, as well as checking them daily.

Tip 4) Spot cleaning

If you don’t have a solarium to dry your horse after a bath, you can also use a hot damp towel to clean the dirtiest spots. If you’re cleaning larger areas with the towel, make sure to use a fleece rug to keep your horse warm, and to speed up the drying process.

Tip 5) Make sure not only your horse is clean

If you want a clean horse, it’s important to make sure other things are clean too. Put your rugs and saddle pads a bit faster in the washing machine as you’d usually do as they are great dust collectors.  Also, don’t forget about the brushes. In winter you’ll have to wash them more often as more sand is captured in the bristles. The Grooming Deluxe brushes are easily cleaned in some soapy water. Just get your hands through the bristles to loosen up the sand, and let them dry for a while.

BRON: Kentucky