Courage Goes Bald, Round 1

We've had two days of steady rain, making the arena practically useless and then yesterday afternoon was in the low forties with a steady, cold wind blowing in some even colder weather. Ew. It was too cold and yuck for me to want to ride this early in the season, so I decided it was more than time for C-rage to get his first clip as a sporthorse.

He was not sure it was a great idea

The past couple of years, I've had my horse in a very full care situation, so I just did a full body clip (including legs) because that is the easiest to deal with from a riding perspective. This year, however, we're in a more laid-back situation and Courage isn't really working hard enough to sweat much. Couple that with the fact that he doesn't have a ton of hair, and I really had no reason to take it all off.

After reviewing a lot of information, I decided to go with the "chaser" style clip for a couple of reasons. 1) It leaves the horse with plenty of hair to stay warm. 2) It avoids sensitive hind quarters, which reduces the chances I'd get kicked in the face. 3) It isn't quite as ugly as a trace clip. 4) I can always change it later.


Of course, Courage is a very sensitive guy and due to the high winds, I'd closed the front barn door, so the interior of the barn was quite spooky. I'd intentionally chosen a low-traffic time to clip, which meant that there were people buzzing around, dogs barking, and a horse coming back from the vet.

First attempt

Here goes nothing, right?

I was very impressed with the clippers--they were super quiet and cut well. Courage is reasonably clean, but they held their blade nicely and didn't get too hot. I used masking tape to mark off the lines I wanted to follow and clipped away. It was tricky to do the neck, but that's just because someone kept twisting his adorable face around and demanding cookies anytime I was forward of his shoulder.

Cuz he's a rockstar

I'm not really sure how I feel about clipping designs, but the fact is that we never had the option at the show barn. Since he's my horse and we're free to do whatever we want, I decided that we had to try this at least once.

And I have to admit, it is pretty cute.

By the time we were done, he had dropped his head and was falling asleep.

I'm hoping the cold wind dried out the arena enough that I can have a ride around today to see how it goes. After all, there's a chance I'll get a lesson this weekend and I want to be prepared.