The Greatest Horse Grooming Tools for Summer

Feed the Shine

• There’s no use in buying all of the brushes and sprays if your horse’s diet is junk. The bloom that appears on a healthy coat is the result of diet, elbow grease, and products.

• When designing an equine diet, it is easy to overlap ingredients and supplements, sometimes to the detriment of your horse. It’s also easy to keep things too simple and ignore crucial ingredients that support horse health. Perhaps the most affordable way to create a balanced diet that accounts for age, health, diseases, hoof quality, metabolic status, training plan, and more is to consult an equine nutritionist.

The basics of equine nutrition

• Start with forage. Then consider water, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and energy.

• Hay and sometimes pasture should be the basis of your horse’s diet. Then you can layer on necessary supplements and bagged feeds to round out the diet.

• Calories, vitamins, minerals, and fats may be missing from a plain hay and pasture diet. What’s missing, or in excess, varies depending on the soil the hay and pasture sprout from, as well as your horse’s age, weight, lifestyle, and other variables.

• You may need to add hoof supplements for shelly feet, vitamin E if there is no pasture, Omega-3 fatty acids to boost skin and coat health, daily salt for electrolyte maintenance, protein for hard-working dams or athletes, or vitamins and minerals to complete the profile if hay and pasture are lacking.

Read more about the basic equine nutrition requirements here.

Omega-3s for shine

• When it comes to skin and hair, the minerals zinc, copper, and Omega-3 fatty acids are the most important. Zinc and copper help maintain hair color and prevent sun bleaching. Omega-3s should vastly outnumber Omega-6s to promote sebum, the natural oil that creates waterproofing and shine.

• Chia and flax are two easy ways to deliver Omega-3s.

Learn more about Omegas and skin health here.

Brushes and Tools When Your Horse is Dry

• There are very few substitutes for elbow grease. Lifting dirt and spreading sebum create shine and help protect the hair from future stains.

Great for bathing and daily curry action.

Grooming gloves

• Keep your nails clean (mostly) as you curry your way to a clean horse. Aside from the convenience of wearing your curry comb, grooming gloves give you more feedback from your horse, allowing you to vary the pressure and easily work on tricky areas like ears and legs.

• Grooming gloves are also fantastic for shedding excess hair year-round and for bathing.

Finishing gloves

• Once you have curried and brushed, you can add a layer of shine with or without product attached. Jute gloves help smooth the hair and spread the sebum around. They essentially buff the coat into a gloss.

• If you need to use a shine spray, fly spray, or any other grooming product, applying it with finishing gloves ensures a smooth, streak-free application.

Dandy, hard, and soft brushes

• Many of us learn to use the hard or dandy brush first, then follow it up with a soft brush. It’s best to throw this notion out the window and use the brush that your horse finds the most comfortable. Some like a deep scratch provided by a stiffer dandy brush, while others only want a feather touch with the softest brush imaginable. Use the one your horse prefers. You can always follow up with a cloth if there are loose hairs.

Cactus cloth

• The cactus cloth is also handy, like a finishing glove, to buff in some shine. The stiffer texture of the cactus cloth also makes sweat mark removal easy, and you can use it in the wash rack for bathing.

• Because it’s a little stiffer than a washcloth or jute, some horses may not love the feeling on bellies, faces, or other sensitive areas.

No-rinse shampoo or spot remover spray

• While no-rinse shampoo sprays are amazing in winter, they are also quite handy in summer if you need to lift the last layer of dirt from the coat.

• These spot removers are also super for touching up stains and chrome at horse shows, and for removing smells from horses and dogs alike.

Rubbing alcohol

• I also keep a spray bottle of alcohol and water on hand. I use one of those empty spray bottles that you can fill with whatever you like. Rubbing alcohol evaporates much faster than water, so if you or your horse needs an extra hand cooling off, spritz some of the mix and get thee to some wind. Horses with anhidrosis will need all the help they can get cooling off, so stash some of these bottles around the ring so you can spray your horse as you ride.

A cactus cloth has many uses.

Hoof Care in Summer

• For most horses, hoof growth speeds up a little in summer. This can be great if there are cracks that need to grow out. You may also find that more frequent bathing or muddy conditions necessitate some extra hoof care.

Hoof pick

• The best hoof picks can get into tiny grooves and remove rocks. Having a hoof brush attached to a pick, or as a separate tool, lets you deep clean year-round.

• The brush is especially handy before applying polish for the show ring.

Hoof conditioner

• It’s satisfying to use a hoof product to add luster and shine, but are they necessary? In some cases, hoof conditioners, hardeners, or other goop can cause damage to an already-compromised hoof.

• However, you may want to add a layer of hoof conditioner before turning out into mud or bathing to help mitigate the wet-dry cycle that can create thrush and cracks.

This article explains more about hoof dressings and hoof health.

Shine spray for horse shows

• It’s always nice to add a little bit of extra shine for the show ring. A simple sheen spray adds luster, or go for a shine-boosting spray to add a mega-watt, mirror-like shine to your horse.

• Shine products enhance your horse’s natural shine, help set quarter marks, and can detangle manes and tails.

I’ll never use a stiff green hose again!

Horse Grooming Tools for Summer Bathing

• While it’s tempting to bathe all day, every day, you shouldn’t need to. If your horse’s nutrition is balanced and your elbows are likely to fall off soon, your regular grooming routine should only require shampoo every once in a while.

Shampoo

• Choosing the best shampoo helps your horse’s coat stay healthy. Choose a mild formulation for added shine. Use a whitening formula for spots that need extra stain removal oomph. Color-depositing variations are ideal for combating bleached coats. Specialty formulas with sensitive skin ingredients help soothe the skin.

Read more about choosing the best shampoo for your horse here.

Sweat scraper

• It’s not always best to sweat-scrape your horse in hot weather. Science tells us that leaving the water on your horse benefits them more than removing it. However! Many horses dislike the feeling of excess water dripping. In which case, scrape away.

• You can also use a sweat scraper to save water while bathing. Scrape away suds before rinsing to minimize water use.

• The styles with the flexible rubber edge are best for sensitive horses. Other styles combine a shedding blade on one side with a sweat scraper on the other.

Flexi hose and nozzle

• Never roll a hose again! Flexible hoses are ideal for keeping a wash rack area tidy. Pair that with an adjustable nozzle for an easy bath time. The FAN setting is great for rinsing legs. Aim the fan down and squeegee all the way to the hoof. Tails are rinsed easily with this method, too.

Health Care Tools

• All items in your horse’s grooming box support their health. This holds for body brushes and every grooming implement that you own, as well as specific health items – like thermometers.

Clippers

• Trimmers are super for light clipping and tidying up, like ear edges, bridle paths, and wayward hairs. Body clippers and shears are best for trace clips and a full body clip. While it’s great fun to say “hair is natural, why would you shave it,” the reality is that some horses can’t have comfort and skin health without clipping.

Thermometer and stethoscope

• If you were only allowed to know six things about your horse, they should be their temperature, pulse, respirations, digital pulses, gut sounds, and gums. These vital signs are just that – vital tidbits of knowledge about your horse’s health that can alert you to laminitis, colic, fever, and injury long before their mannerisms give it away.

Tick picker tool

• There is no reality in which ticks should be handled without an easy way to pluck them off. A simple tick picker tool will save you much time and hassle trying to wrangle these parasites from your horse.

Fly spray and sheets

• Speaking of parasites, flies of all varieties have no good business bothering your horse. A good fly spray and a fly sheet do wonders for your horse’s comfort. For maximum protection, add a fly mask and fly boots to minimize stomping and other harmful impacts.

The summer months can usually make a shiny coat bloom in the sun, with appropriate elbow grease and the right grooming tools.