6 Ways to Improve Your Horse's Winter Coat

Feed Omega 3’s

• Shiny, healthy skin and coat come from within.  A well-balanced, forage-based diet is a great place to start, but skin and hair need a little boost.  One easy, delicious, and affordable way to do this is to supplement with Omega-3 fatty acids.  These powerful fatty acids are anti-inflammatory, boost shine, and help your horse’s digestive system move and stay healthy.

• Some great Omega-3 products are flax or chia-based and easy to feed.  Stabilized or cold-milled flax is probably the easiest to feed, as it’s delicious, already ground up, and has a long and stable shelf life. 

Choose Your Grooming Tools Wisely

• Now, the elbow grease part. Sure, curry your arms off regularly.  Daily, even!  If you’re feeling saucy, curry before and after riding. Then, use a longer, stiffer dandy brush to lift hair, dirt, and dander. 

• Follow with a finishing brush.  The short and dense bristles smooth out the hair and do a great job of spreading around your horse’s natural oils. 

• Another option is making a hay wisp, jute gloves, or a cactus cloth to buff some shine.

• If your horse is full of static, you’ll notice that any dust you bring up will stick like glue to your horse’s coat.  You can bust that up by spritzing water or no-rinse shampoo onto your horse or brush before sweeping it away.

A finishing brush (on the left) boosts shine more than dandy brushes.

Remove Stains

• Stains love brittle hair and often turn white and gray horses yellow in the winter.  Stains will also dull the hair, creating a unique aroma that lingers until spring for all horse colors. Even though you can’t see stains on a darker horse, you will see the rumpled and crusty hair.

• It’s easy to remove stains after you groom.  Currying and brushing can remove most of a stain, then apply no-rinse shampoo or spot-remover.  Let this sit for a few minutes, then wipe away with a dry cloth.  You can use hot water, too, but go easy, or you’ll end up with a foamy mess.

Buff Away Sweat

• Dried sweat makes for a crusty and dull coat.  You have a few options to lift that salty film. 

• You could wipe the sweat away, either with a cloth or a cloth and some no-rinse shampoo. 

• Or, you could let the sweat dry, and use a cactus cloth or jute gloves to lift the sweaty remnants.

Oil Buff

• Oil buffing is the fine art of buffing some grooming oil into your horse’s coat.  It’s best done with a hot toweling method for longer winter coats in cold weather. 

Steps to oil buff in winter:

• Get a bucket of HOT water and add a few capfuls of grooming oil to about two gallons of hot water.

• Have a rinse bucket of water ready to dunk dirty towels into. 

• Soak a cloth or small towel in the hot water and oil mix.  Wring it out until your arms fail.  The cloth should be warm and barely damp.

• Use this cloth to curry your horse.  Drop it into your rinse bucket to remove dirt when it gets cooler.  Then, your cloth can cycle back into the hot bucket.

A few notes about oil buffing:

• Your horse should stay dry and sleek if you use a few capfuls in two gallons of water. Wring out the towels more and use a cooler to cover completed areas if your horse is damp.

• No amount of oil buffing replaces a healthy diet full of Omega-3s. 

Clipped horses can be shiny, too!

Use Sheets

• A thin, slippery nylon sheet will help prevent stains, keep your horse mostly mud-free, and help the coat stay shiny. 

• Sheets and blankets supplement a horse’s coat for several reasons, but not all horses need them. And yes, a blanket will squash a horse’s coat down, but it also adds more insulation.

• For horses that need added protection from the elements, like those with sensitive skin who frequently gets rain rot, an ultra-thin sheet protects against rain and doesn’t squash the coat.

• These ultra-light sheets also keep the coat “slickery” and minimize the dust and mud stuck in thicker coats. 

Now, your horse can have a shiny, healthy coat all winter long!