Clipping advice...would this work?

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glamourpuss

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My young ex-racer TB has never been clipped before. I've done a lot of desensitising work with him but TBH I don't think for his 1st clip I need to keep it all nice & calm.
He has a very, very fine coat.....but does sweat & is starting to come into harder work now.
Someone has mentioned that they clip there clipper shy horse, over a few sessions with the Liveryman Element trimmers. Really? Does anyone else do this? Or am I totally mad for thinking about it?
 
Not mad at all if you don't mind your horse looking a bit like a patchwork quilt for a few days while you do all the corners. Not done it myself, but a friend in the same situation did hers last year with human hair trimmers which are even quieter than horse trimmers. It's the buzzing noise which her horse can't stand and he was fine with them. (Should say, she's a hairdresser by profession and bought a set with spare blades especially for her horse, but it still took her 4 or 5 days to do all of him as she had to keep stopping to recharge the clippers between sessions!). Not sure it would work on my highland, though, who is now in his full "yeti" coat, thick enough to run my fingers through and having to groom him with a hair brush as its the only thing which will go through the density of hair. lol ..... good luck.
 
glamourpuss said:
My young ex-racer TB has never been clipped before. I've done a lot of desensitising work with him but TBH I don't think for his 1st clip I need to keep it all nice & calm.
He has a very, very fine coat.....but does sweat & is starting to come into harder work now.
Someone has mentioned that they clip there clipper shy horse, over a few sessions with the Liveryman Element trimmers. Really? Does anyone else do this? Or am I totally mad for thinking about it?
Click to expand...

I think if you have spent time desensitising him, you should be fine with normal clippers, I suppose it all depends on his attitude if he's quite nervous, then just take your time and do sections at a time over a couple of days, we had a youngster in that was a bit scatty but coped fine getting done this way and is fine to clip now, and then we had a level headed youngster that came in and when he needed clipped he stood like an angel to be completely clipped out! :-)
 
I think I would be tempted to do the less sensitive areas in one go with clippers and once the horse reaches the stage where they start to get unhappy leave it and use the trimmers to finish off those bits over a few days

Chances are you will get quite a bit done with the normal clippers in the first session
 
Thank you for your replies. The desensitising has worked but he really is the type of horse you have to pick your battles with.
TBH I'd rather play it softly, softly first couple of times.

The patchwork quilt look doesn't bother me, I'm on my own yard :D

This horse blows my all ex-racers are good to shoe, box, clip etc right out of the water :D
 
My friend clipped her entire COB with trimmers the first time I believe so I would imagine SoPo's coat would not pose you too many problems :)
 
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