Twice a year your horse changes its wardrobe

Shedding is not a nuisance, it is an achievement. What happens inside the horse, why daylight sets it off, and how to turn eight weeks of hair into four.

It does not begin with warmth. It begins with light. Weeks before the first mild day, the horse is measuring day length, and the body makes a decision that no change in the weather will reverse. Which is why horses shed in February in a hard frost and stand there in September at twenty-five degrees wearing half a winter coat.

For the body this is heavy work. Building an entire coat costs protein, trace elements and energy, at a time when many horses are also coming back into work. A horse that seems duller during the change is not lazy. It is building a coat.

What actually helps in spring

Half of it is friction. The loose hair is barely held in the follicle and wants out. Anything that pulls and rolls speeds this up: a rubber curry in small circles, a shedding block, at a pinch a clean glove. The only rule is to finish with the coat and not against it, or the topcoat stands up and the horse looks scruffy even though it is clean.

Twenty minutes with a curry comb beats any supplement out of a bucket.

The other half is movement. A horse that sweats and is then walked dry loses hair faster than one standing in a field. Work briskly three days a week in spring and groom properly afterwards, and you are usually finished a fortnight earlier.

Feeding, without miracle cures

Hair is largely keratin, and keratin needs sulphur-bearing amino acids, zinc and copper. A horse on good forage and a sensible mineral feed already has them. What is worth adding during the change is a portion of linseed oil or linseed, because fatty acids keep the skin supple, and shine does not come out of a spray bottle.

Clipping or not

You clip because the horse works, not because it looks smarter. A horse in full winter coat needs well over an hour to dry after a brisk session, and that hour in a damp coat is the real risk. If it sweats regularly, clip, and clip only what sweats: neck, chest, flank. The rest stays on and keeps it warm.

If you clip, you rug. No heavier than necessary, but reliably, because a clipped horse has handed in its own insulation and cannot get it back at short notice.

Autumn is the quieter half

Autumn shows less, because the summer coat is short and the wind takes it away. Still, this is the moment to check the skin: scurf, bald patches, crusts in the pastern folds. What is found and treated now is over by January. What is missed now grows quietly under the winter coat.

Whatever disappears under the coat in autumn comes back in March.