The "Keeping Hoofy's Tail Properly Combed" Thread

HoofClix

Only one reason I'd start such a thread, that I've agreed with Llewie to stay out of the critiques until the 15th.... So in light of that I think you all may need to come in here and attend to my tail every now and then. You choose, it could be to keep the icky stuff from accumulating on the upper part, or to keep it from dragging the ground... Other than that, I'll do my best for you all..

richtersl

HoofClix wrote:

Only one reason I'd start such a thread, that I've agreed with Llewie to stay out of the critiques until the 15th.... So in light of that I think you all may need to come in here and attend to my tail every now and then. You choose, it could be to keep the icky stuff from accumulating on the upper part, or to keep it from dragging the ground... Other than that, I'll do my best for you all..

...I see you get to play judge.

It's hard to resist taking a peek at the critiques and the gallery but it's worth the wait.

HoofClix

I had actually been absent for about a week, so had the request when I popped in. I had a lightning strike directly over the the cable line feeding my internet mid last week. The surge traveled right up the cable, through the modem, up the ethernet line right into my main computer! Fried the network card and a fan, but fortunately no hard drive damage and no lost files.:ivar

With all of the surge protection, battery backup, and voltage regulation I have on my systems, my failure was to not have my lan line running through it! Big lesson learned.

The good thing is that I haven't been to any dgrin threads except the announcement thread since mid last week, so I'm totally in the dark as to what you guys are putting up.

divamum

EEEEYOUCH. Glad you didn't lose any equipment.

There's a catchall thread floating around (titled "Catchall Thread") which got started for similar reasons when Aaron and I were judging and exiled.

Aren't you into the swing of the show season yet? Surely June is humming with events....?!

PS I paid for many a horseshow by braiding for other people, but HATE doing tails (I can... I just hate doing it - one of those things your'e either great at, or have to work at, and for me it was the latter). So you'll have to settle for a set of damn good hunter braids instead of a tail job

HoofClix

Being mostly on the eventing side, and living in the South, my season it January to May, then September-November. Being rather taxing on the horse, or any athlete, all the eventing moves north to Virginia on up, and I stopped following them two years ago because of the expense.. I'll hit some hunter shows down here this summer to help out some fellows who help me out up to this point.. You guys living up there should check them out. Leesburg VA, Frederick MD, and several in Mass. You can always drive out to the Hamptons and see the really high-dollar stuff...

Braiding, there's a lady who lives down here who makes a nice living braiding at the shows. She and a team will work the night hours to have your horse ready in the morning. Tour the showgrounds after nine and you'll see a whole group of different people doing that kind of stuff..

richtersl

What's the reason for braiding tails and manes? Aesthetics? Or, making sure that stay out of the way?

divamum

richtersl wrote:

What's the reason for braiding tails and manes? Aesthetics? Or, making sure that stay out of the way?

It started as a way of keeping the tail clean and not caught up in brush, and the mane out of the way - presumably to avoid it getting tangled in swords and the like (the same reason that most horsy things are done from the left hand side, iow NOT the dominant swor hand).

Now, it's just convention. Jumpers don't have to bother unless they want to; show hunter folks HAVE to braid if they want to be competitive. Don't know what the current fashion is in braiding (like most things, it changes) and if it's gone back to the more British style of fewer, chunkier, rounder braids but when I was riding it was all about LOTS AND LOTS of flat, yarn-tied braids. A decent-sized thoroughbred with a long neck could easily be 40-60 braids. It's not that hard once you get the hang of it (and assuming the horse's mane has been properly pulled and kept shorter/thinner), but it can get really tedious....

These are the kinds I used to do
http://lizditz.typepad.com/photos/horse_photos_images/jimmy_braids.jpg

Here are the larger, British style braids which are usually sewn in with thread rather than tied up with yarn (yarn is WAY easier... and also easier to take out the n ext day!)
http://www.dkimages.com/discover/previews/769/917643.JPG

tape-wrapped for dressage (again, just convention)
http://www.jewelbraids.com/images/kahuna_small.jpg

And a nicely braided hunter tail
http://ostertagphoto.com/Misc/OR36594.jpg

For shows, people usually leave the bottom free hanging, but in "olden times" (and sometimes for real hunters out in the fields) you can turn up the free end and tape that into what's called a "mud tail"... to keep it OUT of the mud.

There ya go. More than you EVER wanted to know

MOD EDIT: Kept links but removed embedded images of others' work.

HoofClix

Fancy stuff there..

And then there are those eventers who just clip the hair from the base of the tail (part closest to the tail.) leaving nothing to braid......

Here I said I was finished and I'm off to a hunter show Friday morn..

Just... Can't........ Stop.....

pyry

divamum wrote:

It started as a way of keeping the tail clean and not caught up in brush, and the mane out of the way - presumably to avoid it getting tangled in swords and the like (the same reason that most horsy things are done from the left hand side, iow NOT the dominant swor hand).

So that's where it comes from, I should have guessed.

I don't really care for that little rule. Horses know that too and sometimes turn to offer their right hand side to try to get out of getting saddled or bridled - so I've learned to do those from whichever side I'm at.

richtersl

divamum wrote:

It started as a way of keeping the tail clean and not caught up in brush, and the mane out of the way ...

OK, so it's more similar to the reason why poodles sport fancy hair cuts.

Thanks, divamum! And, those are some fancy-looking braids. I wouldn't mind doing the manes, but I'm not sure I'd want to spend too much time near a horse's tail.

pyry

richtersl wrote:

Thanks, divamum! And, those are some fancy-looking braids. I wouldn't mind doing the manes, but I'm not sure I'd want to spend too much time near a horse's tail.

Why? They do lift it out of the way to.. you know.

divamum

Whoops - sorry Llywellyn - I thought I was covered because I included the link as well.... :hide

Won't do it again, miss!

richtersl

pyry wrote:

Why? They do lift it out of the way to.. you know.

Yeah, I know, but being in the general vicinity when they decide to take care of business would not bode well with me.

divamum

HoofClix wrote:

Being mostly on the eventing side, and living in the South, my season it January to May, then September-November. Being rather taxing on the horse, or any athlete....

One of the worst weather-related things I ever experienced at a show was during an August in LA. In general, the CA season went right through the summer, weather notwithstanding, although if it was really bad they'd sometimes shut down the events during the hot afternoon hours of the 1-day shows, rescheduling everything on the fly to evening classes and essentially running on a "siesta" schedule.

On this occasion, it being a biiigggg multi-ring, complex-schedule, weeklong show, they decided to press through despite the soaring temperatures. Riders were told they could dispense with jackets and every cross-tie and hose was made available to all so we could try to keep the creatures cool, but they kept going in the 3-digit heat.

One 15-17 who was pretty much a deservedly unbeatable combination with her horse went in to do her round. I was actually hosing down my own guy so didn't see it, but heard the gasp, followed by that scary silence that comes after a bad fall in the ring.

Turned out that her beautiful chestnut - possibly THE most consistent, good-tempered and willing hunter I think I've ever seen - had jumped and more or less FORGOTTEN to unfold as he came down. He landed knees first and just lay there. It was a perfect takeoff, he was fine in the air and it seemed that he'd just been overcome by the weather and been hit by Horsy Heatstroke of some kind, bless his heart.

I don't think anybody had ever seen him put a foot wrong (he was the kind of horse who not only did what he was supposed to, but would FIX things on his own) and it was very distressing to all. VERY fortunately, he was fine after a few seconds, got up and shook himself, and was led out of the ring, but everybody was badly shaken.

Within minutes of the incident, they had cancelled the day's classes and rescheduled them across the evenings of the rest of the week.

HoofClix

Yikes, that had to have been one hot day. The big 3day sites out there are Galway Downs in Temecula, Ram Tap in Fresno, both of which avoid the real summery months, and then a few nearer at Paso Robles and Santa Ynez. I have a hard enough time being out there in the heat myself... With all of this global warming and all, we're going to all have to move to Greenland for the summer...

pyry

richtersl wrote:

Yeah, I know, but being in the general vicinity when they decide to take care of business would not bode well with me.

Fair enough