The Great Clipping Conundrum
I feel that we all go through some sort of existential struggle each fall when it comes time to start thinking about body clipping our horses.
To clip, or not to clip?
Full body, trace, bib, Irish...?
Do I pay someone to clip my pony, or submit myself to 3 hours of itchy torture?
If we are going to have another Polar Vortex, is it even worth it?!
My original thought was to clip Dino sometime within the next week, before our HT on October 12th. I wanted to do a sort of high trace clip, similar to this:
I like that this clip leaves the face & legs untouched (let's be honest, those are a pain to do) and while it does remove the majority of the hair on the horse's underside, it leaves a good amount on the top for when it starts to get chillier. I also really liked the swoopy design of this clip!
But then I realized that all of my blankets are still MIA from when I dropped them off to get cleaned about a month ago. I was told there was a big backlog of blankets to be washed, but I was expecting them to be done by now.
Not so.
Definitely can't clip my pony if I don't have any blankets to put on him at night. And he hasn't really been getting THAT sweaty during our rides lately, even though he's definitely already put on his fall fluffs. It's nothing 20 minutes of drying and a good curry can't take care of.
Ugh. Clipping. This is one of those times when it would be nice to be able to afford to just buy new blankets and pay someone else to clip my pony!
To clip, or not to clip?
Full body, trace, bib, Irish...?
Do I pay someone to clip my pony, or submit myself to 3 hours of itchy torture?
If we are going to have another Polar Vortex, is it even worth it?!
My original thought was to clip Dino sometime within the next week, before our HT on October 12th. I wanted to do a sort of high trace clip, similar to this:
I like that this clip leaves the face & legs untouched (let's be honest, those are a pain to do) and while it does remove the majority of the hair on the horse's underside, it leaves a good amount on the top for when it starts to get chillier. I also really liked the swoopy design of this clip!
But then I realized that all of my blankets are still MIA from when I dropped them off to get cleaned about a month ago. I was told there was a big backlog of blankets to be washed, but I was expecting them to be done by now.
Not so.
Definitely can't clip my pony if I don't have any blankets to put on him at night. And he hasn't really been getting THAT sweaty during our rides lately, even though he's definitely already put on his fall fluffs. It's nothing 20 minutes of drying and a good curry can't take care of.
Ugh. Clipping. This is one of those times when it would be nice to be able to afford to just buy new blankets and pay someone else to clip my pony!
I'm going through that right now with Wade, except Wade has already grown in his full winter coat and gets reeeeeeally sweaty during our rides. I'm hoping he gets clipped soon!
ReplyDeleteI do like that clip in the picture though, it's interesting :)
I like the idea of a trace clip... but Miles' face gets so sweaty! So then I inevitably want to clip his face... and then he just looks silly with wooly mammoth hair on his legs..... ugh. Such a tough decision!
ReplyDeleteFor me clipping is body clip or bust! I was afraid to do it myself last year, but did and it ended up looking pretty spiffy!
ReplyDeleteI LOVE that trace clip, I'm hoping to do something very similar to that on Svenna next week. She is a crazy hairy pony right now and she just gets so hot!
ReplyDeleteGoing through the dilema as well. Red Rogue Pony is starting to swelter a bit when we ride because he already put on 1/2 inch of winter hair. But the days can sometimes still be warm. Not really a problem except I get up to go to work at 4:30am and it's still too cold to pull blankets for the day. Soooo still not sure what I will do.
ReplyDeleteUm. Too bad you live far away. ;-) I can do a full body clip (not including legs) in an hour.
ReplyDeleteBut yes, you'd still need to have blankets handy for that.
SORCERY! Dude it would almost be worth flying you halfway across the country, haha! I think part of my problem is I don't have a big honkin' pair of true 'body' clippers... I'm using the Oster A6 right now and the hair just goes RIGHT INTO THE DRIVE SHAFT and bogs them up so I have to take the blades off and clean it out every five seconds. Just booting Dino's white legs the other day took forever. Ugh.
DeleteI'm also having this dilemma. It's been wavering from the 60s to the 80s here and with the pony getting his winter fuzzies in I can already tell he's struggling a bit with the warmer temperatures. I think I am going to do a bib clip in the next week or so, before an October show, just in case it's warm that weekend. Followed by a trace or full body clip in November when I see just how cold it's actually going to get!
ReplyDeleteI've always loved doing that kind of clip...the young race horses in training down the way from me were always clipped like that. I ended up doing less high version on Spot with the curves and such marked out with a cheap 99cent lipstick. The clip worked really well for us this past winter!
ReplyDelete