Do you bath (the horse) before you clip?

I do a hot wash the day before with a thermos and some essential oils. Otherwise my clippers scream for help after one stripe ..... When I "forget" (cba) to do it, I always regret my laziness.
 
Clipping myself, just a quick clip for a youngster, then no, I usually don't bath. (No hot wash here)
For a competition horse who I want a nice finish on, then absolutely.
If I had a professional clipper coming to clip, then I'd definitely bath, so they can do a clip to their high standards and not have their blades dulled quickly.
 
Yes, I have to. He is quite a greasy horse and the clippers clog almost instantly if I don't. I need to go over mine again (clipped all year round), so will just bathe the bits I'm clipping, the afternoon before, then put a rug on. No amount of grooming removes his grease. My old pony I think would have been fine with just a good groom, though.
 
Always. Hot bath with de greasing shampoo the day before. Stops the tramlines and unevenness in clip. Coat just falls off.
Clipped a friend's pony a few years ago that lived out and had only been brushed over. Blew one set of clippers up and blunted two sets of blades. Never again.
 
Lyle said:
If I had a professional clipper coming to clip, then I'd definitely bath, so they can do a clip to their high standards and not have their blades dulled quickly.
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This is a good point. My decision not to bother bathing was a trade off against accepting I’d need to sharpen my blades more often. If someone else were doing it I’d have bathed
 
With a coloured with pink skin I always bath, use degreaser shampoo and hot water and STILL get lines, so goodness knows what his white bits would look like without!
 
Last year I tried a bath the day before (he is much too fluffy to dry the same day) in warm water with lots of washing up liquid and the clipping was much quicker and neater.

Now I do it each time - I do have a hot water tap and drying rugs afterwards and a non muddy field to turn out in overnight.
 
I only do a bib-clip, and the chest never seems to get that greasy or dirty. So, I don't wash. I think if I was doing a bigger clip, I would wash. perhaps start earlier in the year when the coat isn't so thick, and then just keep on top of it.
 
Normally a hot cloth to get the grease out and a good groom as he's normally clean anyway! If its warm i'd bath but its not normally lol
 
I gave Bo a conservative Irish clip yesterday.

Just gave him a very thorough groom first, and it was the least awful clip so far! 😆

If I'd have been taking more off i might have given him a quick wash down, but it felt a bit overkill for an irish clip.
 
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