The Best Horse Grooming Brushes 

How to Pick the Best Brushes for Horses

• There are endless options and countless iterations of brushing tools for horses. Not to mention colors, too. How do you know what would work best? Ask yourself a few questions, and then you can go from there.

What does your horse need? Focus on the bristles.

• Many of the grooming tools available cater to varying lengths of horse hair and how sensitive these creatures can be. Use the bristles as a place to start comparison shopping.

Bristle length

• Longer bristles are great for flicking away dirt that you have brought up with your curry comb. Shorter bristles are great for smoothing the coat after you have curry-combed your horse and flicked away the dirt and hair to add more polish.

Thickness of bristles

• Generally speaking, the thicker the bristle, the larger the chunk of whatever will be removed. You may need more than one brush for your grooming kit. A thick-bristled brush for mud and clumps, a thin-bristled brush for the fine dust and hair.

Bristle material – natural or synthetic?

• I love natural bristle brushes for my horse’s coats. They are soft, dense, and effective. So thick, that you may need to brush your horse for a few strokes, then brush a metal curry comb to release what you just picked up.

• Synthetic bristle brushes are typically made of plastic and are a bit harder. I love love love the super stiff styles, these are great for cleaning saddle pads, horse boots, and the dirt away from the bottom of your pants. I’m not always a fan of these on horses, although some horses want all of the scratching all of the time.

These soft, natural bristles are great at removing the fine dust and dirt.

What does your horse like? 

• What does your horse like? Stiff or soft? Some sensitive-skinned horses only like soft body brushes. They may be ticklish and prefer a stiff body brush for scratches.   

• More on grooming the sensitive horse here!

What’s comfortable for you to hold?

• No brush in your grooming box is fantastic if you can’t even hold the darn thing. Make sure it won’t catch air by flying out of your hands.

• Elastic straps can be helpful to help you hold onto things.

• If bending your fingers and gripping doesn’t work well, look for horse brushes disguised as gloves.

Love these stiff synthetic brushes for doing the tough jobs.

The Top 5 Brushes for Horses –  Reviews

• Try and choose super high-quality brushes for horses. If properly cared for, these will last a lifetime and work much better than a bargain version.

HandsOn Grooming Gloves

• Years and years ago, HandsOn reached out to me before they ever came to market. They asked if I would be interested in their new grooming gloves, and I was immediately skeptical. Highly skeptical. But sure, I’d try them!

• These simple and effective grooming gloves have many advantages besides bathing, grooming, and shedding. They are easy to wear, especially for arthritic hands, and you can vary how much pressure you use to suit your horse’s comfort. You get instant feedback from your horse.

• Grooming gloves are also suitable for faces, ears, bellies, legs, and places on your horse that regular brushes don’t easily fit.