Naked Ponies Everywhere

Every horse person who has ever body clipped their horse knows that feeling of little hairs pricking and poking them with every movement. Well that was me last week.

After my crazy hectic weekend of horse shows, I decided that Ax was far too hairy for my liking and he needed to be clipped. Now. So I covered up as much of my body as I could with layers upon layers of clothes, forced my friend to help me, and powered up my clippers. Maybe it was my lack of sleep that prevented me from thinking clearly, but what on earth would possess someone to clip a horse in the dark on less than three hours of sleep? Apparently that didn’t phase me because off came the hair.

I had been going back and fourth for a few weeks on whether I wanted to do a trace clip or a hunter clip on the fuzzy boy. We started with taping out a trace clip, that way I could still do a hunter clip if I didn’t like it. After multiple tries to get the lines even on both sides, we said good enough and just went for it. Oh I forgot, our source of light was a phone flashlight. Thank god for apps. A few hours later, we were covered with hair and Ax was looking half naked. The lines weren’t perfect but who was going to look that close anyways. I could live with it. A quick brush and blanket change for Ax then we were on our way home. Unfortunately for me, I had forgotten how it felt to drive after body clipping. Every little movement gets you poked by millions of tiny hairs and itches. The fifteen minute drive from the barn to campus was close to torture. My hair-free pajamas were heaven that night.

The next day was when I could actually look at his clip in the daylight. It was bad. Very, very bad. What I had thought was a straight line looked like a giant “S” along his side, that spot that looked like a shadow was actually a giant tuft of hair, and I somehow managed to miss his whole left butt cheek. It was definitely time for the hunter clip.

Two days later I was back at the barn in all my clothes with the clippers ready to go, this time in the daylight. This one should be easier right? All I had to do was leave a patch of hair in the saddle area and half of his body was ready clipped, easy-peasy. Wrong. My first task was blending the previous clipper lines with the new ones I was making. Then I had to clip his neck without taking off his mane. Easier said than done. Ax was not entirely convinced that I wasn’t going to clip his ears with these giant, loud clippers. Next was tracing my half pad to leave hair on his back for the saddle. Other than all the hair sticking to my half pad, that part wasn’t too bad. Lastly, I clipped a heart on his bum. That turned out to be the easiest part. Out into the sun we went to make sure this one wasn’t a hack job. Other than a some clipper marks, the Prince was as close to naked as he could be. I could live with that. I now have a naked, orange horse. Unlike many horses who turn mousey or grey colored when clipped, the Prince turned a nice bright orange.