Saddle-cloth, stockings, or how a horse is trimmed

03.08.2013 21:05

The conditions for horses at the stables are subject to certain rules: the stables must be warm, dry and without draughts. By winter, horses grow thick hair, so even subzero temperatures are not dangerous for them.

At warm stables horses are trimmed so that they could get dry faster after work thus avoiding getting ill. Bangs, manes and tails are not cut by most horsemen, they are thinned out to make hair lay flat.

Horses are trimmed using special electric or manual devices for hair-cutting of animals.

Just like people, horses come up with a variety of fashion haircuts. Here are a few of them:

• «saddle-cloth» or a haircut "for horse cover” - a type of trimming when hair is left on the back, lower back and croup
• «hunting» or “saddle blanket” - part of a horse’s back under the saddle is not trimmed
• «stockings» - when only lower legs remain not trimmed.

Of course, people invent variations of horse haircuts as much as they like.

Before trimming, horses are carefully cleaned; to create complex haircuts, patterns are put on the body using chalk (for example, along the edge of the saddle for “hunting”).

Trimmed horses work with back covers in cold and windy weather. Later at the stable they need to be replaced with dry ones.

Horsemen think that the best time for trimming is the end of November-December, after the fall molt. The latest date - February-beginning of March, before the spring molt.

Author: Edition