Seven pieces, nobody needs more

Most grooming boxes are full and still useless. What actually belongs in one, in which order it is used, and why washing brushes is not fussiness.

Open ten grooming boxes and you find the same thing ten times: four brushes whose purpose nobody can tell apart any more, three half-used spray bottles and a hoof pick with no brush. Yet grooming is one of the few jobs around a horse with a clear logic.

The order explains the tools

Grooming runs from coarse to fine and from the depth to the surface. The curry brings dirt up out of the coat, the hard brush takes it away, the soft brush lays the topcoat back down. Reverse the order and you polish dust that is about to rise again.

• Rubber curry: small circles, muscle only, never over bone
• Body brush, stiff: with the coat, short strokes, cleared on the curry every third stroke
• Body brush, soft: long, calm strokes over the whole body
• Mane and tail comb: wide-toothed, for the ends
• Hoof pick with brush: four hooves, every day
• Two sponges in different colours: one for eyes and nostrils, one for the back end
• A soft cloth: the last per cent of shine

Mixing up the colours of your sponges is a hygiene problem, not a slip.

What ruins brushes

A body brush that is never cleaned becomes a dust spreader within two months. Grease, skin flakes and sand settle between the bristles and are rubbed back into the coat with every stroke. Once a month in lukewarm water with a drop of shampoo, rinsed, dried bristles down. Not in the sun; natural bristles go brittle.

The box itself

A grooming box should be open and shallow so everything can dry. Closed containers hold moisture and smell within three weeks. If you travel a lot, take two small ones rather than one large: one for the yard, one for the lorry, permanently stocked, so nothing has to be repacked on show morning.

What does not belong in it

Anything you have not used in six months. Spray bottles without a label. Brushes with broken bristles that tear hair instead of ordering it. And the second pair of scissors that belongs to nobody and with which somebody eventually cuts a tail straight.