Mominis
Well-Known Member
I thought it would be fun to start a thread with little tricks and tips about show grooming and conditioning. In several other threads, I've seen some really interesting ideas and I thought maybe we could all throw in our 'trade secrets.'
One thing we have done in the past to deepen and enhance the color of blacks, bays, buckskins, pallies, chestnuts, and deeper coated horses is to give them a tsp to start and up to a TBS for a horse that doesn't seem to show much coat difference in 30 days or so (for minis, I'd guess you'd go 1/2 tsp-1/2 TBS) of sweet paprika in their feed. Another thing that we do feed wise is to keep an old coffee grinder in the feed room and freshly grind flaxseed for their feedings. It breaks down the shell of the seed and allows for better absorbtion and glowing coats.
For extra super white coats, we give them a bath with Ivory dishsoap to cut the grease and dirt in the coat. Then, after we dry them well, we use a pre-whitening substance. I don't really know what to call it, it isn't an oil really or a lotion, exactly. I'll have to try to find the name of the stuff, it's been a while. We get it at a local tack shop that caters mainly to ASB people. After they soak in that for about 10 minutes, we use ShoSno, a show dog shampoo that whitens better than any of the horse products we've tried. Then, after we rinse, we hand wipe them down and give them a fine coating of Roux White Minx. Once the White Minx is in, we use the sweat scraper to remove extra water and help the White Minx distribute evenly through the coat. Then we spray them with a non-silicone based show spray (not a finishing spray). Then we let them graze in short grass in the sun while they dry. We don't use any of this on the faces, except the White Minx. For faces we use Johnson and Johnson Baby Shampoo, no tears formula so that we don't sting the eyes with the soap and then use a sponge to rinse the faces before putting the White Minx on the blazes or full faces for greys.
What tricks do you have up your sleeves?
One thing we have done in the past to deepen and enhance the color of blacks, bays, buckskins, pallies, chestnuts, and deeper coated horses is to give them a tsp to start and up to a TBS for a horse that doesn't seem to show much coat difference in 30 days or so (for minis, I'd guess you'd go 1/2 tsp-1/2 TBS) of sweet paprika in their feed. Another thing that we do feed wise is to keep an old coffee grinder in the feed room and freshly grind flaxseed for their feedings. It breaks down the shell of the seed and allows for better absorbtion and glowing coats.
For extra super white coats, we give them a bath with Ivory dishsoap to cut the grease and dirt in the coat. Then, after we dry them well, we use a pre-whitening substance. I don't really know what to call it, it isn't an oil really or a lotion, exactly. I'll have to try to find the name of the stuff, it's been a while. We get it at a local tack shop that caters mainly to ASB people. After they soak in that for about 10 minutes, we use ShoSno, a show dog shampoo that whitens better than any of the horse products we've tried. Then, after we rinse, we hand wipe them down and give them a fine coating of Roux White Minx. Once the White Minx is in, we use the sweat scraper to remove extra water and help the White Minx distribute evenly through the coat. Then we spray them with a non-silicone based show spray (not a finishing spray). Then we let them graze in short grass in the sun while they dry. We don't use any of this on the faces, except the White Minx. For faces we use Johnson and Johnson Baby Shampoo, no tears formula so that we don't sting the eyes with the soap and then use a sponge to rinse the faces before putting the White Minx on the blazes or full faces for greys.
What tricks do you have up your sleeves?
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