---

In order to keep a horse healthy and clean you must groom it. You should thoroughly groom your horse everyday, usually before and after riding. Keeping a horse clean is very important!

These are the basic brushes you can use to groom your horse:

First you should use a rubber curry, going in a circular motion, to remove dust and extra hair. You should continue doing this until the hair and dust stop coming off.

Then you can carefully use a dandy brush to go over the areas were you curried the horse. Do NOT use this brush on the head and avoid using it on a clipped horse. It is very hard.

The body brush has two uses:

1.You can use a body brush to clean the coat and skin. The body brush will remove grease from the coat and adds natural oils to it. this brush massages and helps increase the blood supply, it also helps the muscles.

2.To brush the tail you also use the dandy brush. Make sure you don’t stand directly behind the horse but stay close to the body and off to the side.

Note: Use the metal curry to clean the body brush.

Hoof picks are used to clean the hooves and get the mud and pebbles out of them. You should do this everyday on all four hooves in the same order. Eventually your horse will become familiar with this routine and pick up his/her feet for you.

When you bathe your horse you can use a sponge, a sweat scrape, a water brush, and special horse shampoo. First you wet the horse, then you use the shampoo as directed, rinse carefully, and scrape of excess water with sweat scrape. Now dry with towels and depending on the weather either put ana anti sweat rug on him/her or if it’s warm out let the sun dry your horse for you.

These are just some basic things to do to groom your horse. There are many other steps you can take. Remember that some horses require different care.

A body brush.