The Unfortunate Art and Necessity of Clipping

For the first like 6-7 years of my riding career, I did not do enough heavy work or riding that any of the horses I rode ever had to be clipped. So I had basically zero working knowledge on the subject.

But the last couple of winters, I started to get more familiar on the subject and read up on it more and more, because, well, after you ride a sweaty horse and spend equally if not more time cooling them down than you did riding, you start being very interested in clipping.

Two winters ago, I started realizing that the sweaty horse thing was frustrating and exhausting, so I began researching it. But I didn't have the blankets, clippers or knowledge to be comfortable trying my first clip.

Then last winter, I started collecting the blankets to keep my boy as toasty and warm as he could possibly want to be. Then I finally got clippers and was ready to attempt my first clip. The kicker was it was going to be Charmer's first clip ever too, so I was pretty sure it was probably going to be quite a train wreck. But you have to start somewhere right? 

With some help from some horsey friends, I actually got the clip to look half decent (just ignore those leg lines) and it was functional and worked perfect for me and him.

The best part? Charmer is the calmest horse I have ever met when being clipped. I mean he just stands in the crossties and barely even bats an eye. I've seen sedated horses care more about the clippers than he does without any drugs or treats or anything. Its crazy! But so nice.

Anyways this year I had been putting off clipping about as long as I could. Because really, who wants all that hair in your bra? No matter how good your windbreaker style jacket is, there still always, without fail, happens to be hair in your bra.

But after probably a good 3 weeks of putting it off more than I should or needed to, I finally caved and realized that yes, I do need to shave my pony. The hour long cool down sessions after a 20 minute ride and soaked coolers were getting old very quickly.

But I didn't want to do the exact same clip two years in a row (how boring, right), so I decided to attempt a design (yikes!) and decided to leave his belly hair this year, as I'm pretty sure his girth bothered him when he was totally shaved last year, so I'm testing that theory by not shaving his belly and seeing what happens.

Again, true to form, he stood very patiently and let me shave off all his hair. And even put up with his crazy mom trying to do the deathly hallows symbol from Harry Potter on his butt. The symbol did not come out nearly as well as I hoped, but I was freehanding it and it was my first try at a design, so cut me some slack.