Winter Grooming Tool

Since I don't clip my horses in the winter - they live outdoors all year long, I have a bucketful of grooming tools that I rotate as the seasons change. We don't normally get as much rainy weather as we had this December, so I don't usually deal with much mud. I have been reminded that grooming muddy horses sucks.

My grooming bucket contains a couple of hoof picks, a jelly scrubber (which is on its last legs), a human hair brush, a Tiger's Tongue (also on its last legs), and a number of Haas brushes. This time of year, I exchange my softest brush, the Diamond Gloss, for the Haas Schimmel which has coconut fiber bristles. That thing tackles crusted on mud like a beast.

Haas Schimmel and the Striegel Curry Comb

Izzy's coat doesn't like the Streigel curry as much as Speedy's coat does, and the Schimmel only works when he has his thickest coat. The Schimmel works great on Speedy for ten months of the year, and I can use the curry all year long. Right now, Izzy has a super thick coat, so the Schimmel is pretty much all I am using on him. The other day, I showed up and he looked like this ...

Before ...

The other side was worse. I grabbed the Schimmel and started at his jaw and worked my way across his body and even down his legs. After I went over him once, I did a second pass, dusting off any missed mud. Within five minutes, all of the mud from his right side was gone, and he was clean enough to saddle. He wasn't show clean, but he was about as good as he was going to get without using soap and water and all with just having used the Schimmel.

... After

I've always liked the Schimmel for Speedy's polar bear coat, but it is now my go-to brush for Izzy this winter. If you need a good stiff brush for mud on a thick coat, this brush might be what you need. I don't usually like stiff brushes as they make my horses flinch, but this one doesn't. The coconut fibers must give just enough to not poke the horses' skin. While we desperately need the rain here in California, I wish we could do without so much mud.

To those of you who have winter every year, how do you keep your horses clean?