A horse's mane should be brushed so that the horse can look very polished and shiny. Use a human's brush to brush a horse's mane for a smooth look with helpful advice from a reining horse trainer in this video on brushing and grooming.
Now, there's a lot of other parts to the horse. There's an entire horse here, all the way from his chin to his tail, top of his head to the bottom of his feet, and we've got to take care of it all. We're going to make sure that we comb his mane and tail out, and also his fore top, so that his hair always looks really nice, and that way, we can untangle it, we can make him look really polished and really shiny. Lynn's going to go ahead and work through his mane now with that comb. And I like to use a regular comb that you would buy, a hairbrush, at any salon, basically. There's not actually a specific horse brush. I like the people-type of hairbrushes for a horse. That way, they're not...you're not really ripping the hair out of them. I just want to comb it out, all right? So we're going to smooth up his hair. While she's doing that, I'm going to actually check out his legs. Now, a horse, in the course of riding, depending on what you're doing with your horse, he can bump himself. He can hit himself with another foot. And I want to make sure there's no bumps or bruises or any kind of scrapes on his legs that I might have to take care of. So in this process, while we're cleaning him up, this gives me a chance to just go all over him. Now, even as I'm feeling down his legs with my hands, I can notice that if there seems to be anything unusual, any swelling, that wasn't there before, even any heat. And you'll develop a feel in your hands. You know, just find a cold spot on a horse, and then just keep rubbing your hands down. And as long as it stays cold, everything's cool. But if you start to feel a little warmth in an area, it's just kind of a clue that you might have to watch something. Something might be coming on, a little bit of a twist to an ankle, maybe a little sprain coming on. It's probably not going to be a disaster at this point, but it's something to keep an eye on, all right? So his legs look good, and make sure you go around all four. The areas that I like to check are right down alongside the tendons here. Watch for any swellings there. That's where...that's one of your most common areas. Little bumps in the knee and stuff like that. Now, there's always going to be little things that just kind of come with a horse and come with a sport, whatever sport you choose. You know, I'm not going to worry about every little bump and nick this horse has, especially if it's not causing him any problems. All right? But otherwise, I'm watching for something that's unusual, something that's out of the ordinary, something that's new.
