As promised, how to mark your horse out for clipping vid

OMG, now peeing myself laughing - that has to be the funniest thing I have ever seen - Pedantic you have the most well suited name surely of anyone on this forum.

I must just have a good eye for a line - the only thing I use is a piece of baler twine with a knot in it to measure from spine down ...

Good on ya for making an easy job more difficult ;-)
 
BonneMaman said:
OMG, now peeing myself laughing - that has to be the funniest thing I have ever seen - Pedantic you have the most well suited name surely of anyone on this forum.

I must just have a good eye for a line - the only thing I use is a piece of baler twine with a knot in it to measure from spine down ...

Good on ya for making an easy job more difficult ;-)
Click to expand...

Cool, maybe you could do a vid, gives those who struggle with lines a good tip on how to :)
 
Thanks thats very useful. I need to get a broom handle now. Just one question on that clip do you need to do a u around where the back leg joins the belly? I cant get them straight.
 
Last edited:
I had to chuckle to myself too. Takes as long to mark the horse out as it does to clip it!

I also think the leg lines are way to high. I always go the width of the blades below the muscle on the front legs as this allows for hair to be taken off on the inside of of the legs where they sweat more.

Many moons ago when I was first starting out clipping, with a quiet horse I would get two pieces of bailer twine and knot them together and then tie it around the horse at the height I wanted. Then turning the clippers on the side run around the bailer twine.

Now I just use my eye to get it straight.
 
I didn't think about 8 minutes was long to mark out a sausage, but there you go, takes me a while as I only clip once a year so don't get any practice.

I reckon if I speeded the vid up a bit, it would look a bit Charlie Chaplin does clipping vid LOL :D.

Might be nice if other shared there tips by videoing how they do it, and show the finished result, looking at some of the post's on here, some people struggle, or maybe unnecessarily take the lot off a horse that only needs a bib trace or similar, just because they cant do a straight line.
 
I wouldn't be able to use a broom handle unfortunately - my mare (who is as calm as anything most of the time) went crazy when I tried to measure her height with a measuring stick! :(
 
Blimey, I must admit, it seemed like a lot of faffing with the broom handle, but you certainly got the result!!!
Can I ask why your horse wears bell boots behind?
 
Thanks Pedantic for taking the time to make and post the vid, I found it very useful! Not all of us are lucky enough to have "the eye" for clipping, this will certainly help me out in future! :D
 
Thanks for all the nice comments, it's amazing how simple things can make such a BIG difference, like the tights over the nose, a lady on Bridleways.co.uk suggested it too me years ago, had to work out for myself on how to fit though, made a massive difference to our summer riding :)

Hopefully someone will vid the knot in bailing twine tip for us, could be really useful for anyone with a horse nervous of broom handles/sticks.
 
jokadoka said:
Blimey, I must admit, it seemed like a lot of faffing with the broom handle, but you certainly got the result!!!
Can I ask why your horse wears bell boots behind?
Click to expand...

He has flipped shoes off in the field and travelling in the trailer, I leave them on all the time, pity I didn't vid him going out into the field after clipping, he bombed round like a maniac flybucking :p
 
That's fab! Thankyou very much! I'll be doing a trace or chaser in a week or 2 (horse going for scoping soon so unsure on winter workload) & have only ever followed others lines from his first clip or taken the lot off in full work. I'll definately give that a go now - a chance I'll have good lines!
 
Great video as always and the result was very good. It has certainly given me an idea as I am not that good with lines as the two main horses I clip are that wide that trying to judge by the eye is very hard. I am also new to clipping myself and having watched others do it I only got my own clippers last year. So this year will be only the second time I have used them.
One thing I will say though, did you have to walk into the camera lol. Made me bleeding jump as I had the volume on to hear you talking lol :)
 
Thanks that has given me the confidence to try to clip mine myself this year. She won't care two hoots about a broom handle but would at bailer twine!

All I've ever done up until now is squares and legs working as an equine vet nurse!
 
ROFLMAO, yes I kept making myself jump when I watched it back and edited it, I had to use a tripod as my usual camera technician Hunty91 wasn't available, I used my Samsung pl200 rather than my old trusted video camera or phone, the sound is a bit disappointing.
 
Lol Pedantic :) It was a good video though and now I know what it means to use a broom handle for marking out as I thought you used it as a guide and then run chalk above it. Me being a bit dim lol but can see how easy it to mark out with that method though. I would have to use coloured chalk though as one of my horses is a piebald that is mainly white so something like blue would stand out I reckon.
 
The video is a great idea, Pedantic. It'd be nice to see video's of other people's methods too. I just use blue chalk and a good eye, but OH is a perfectionist and I think he'd use a broom or twine if I suggested it.
 
I'm a by eye person as I hate clipping with a passion so when I set my mind to it just go for it, no mane plaiting or tail bandaging either!! I figure that people can't really see both sides of my horse at once and I make sure he looks even from the backend!

For a blanket clip I once clipped around an old ride on exercise sheet which wasn't very deep and that was probably the tidest clip I have ever done.

I had never thought to use a broom handle to mark out lines but it is an excellent idea!!
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top