Susie Shuttleworth from Traditional Show Cobs very kindly offered to come along and assist with the makeover. Susie is very well-known within the Traditionals fraternity with horses such as Del Boy V and In Your Dreams, amongst others.
Susie first carried out an assessment of the damage to the
forelock and advised to keep applying Mane and Tail Builder 2 to 3 times a
week to help promote hair growth. We could already see that there had been some
growth since the forelock was cut off and Samantha is going to provide some pictures
on a monthly basis so we can publish the growth process.
Susie advised that Samantha should apply Mane and Tail Builder to the feathers and this will help to promote growth as ideally a Traditional should have feather covering the hooves. She advised that with regular use, Samantha could easily expect a good few inches of additional feather over coming months.
Susie always pays special attention to feathers as this is
so important for a Traditional Cob. She advised that immediately after
returning home from a show, her team always apply pig oil to the feathers, so
one of the first things they subsequently need to do when starting their
grooming prep for a show day is to break down the oil and remove it.
Once the oil had been broken down and rinsed, Susie used Blue Shampoo to really whiten and brighten the feathers and she always starts with this as her first job so that she can lather up the legs and leave the lather on the feather whilst she is going about her other preparation.
By
leaving Blue Shampoo on the legs, this gives the shampoo a good few minutes to
really sink in to the feather and for the optical brighteners contained in the
shampoo to work their magic. Both Susie and Samantha lathered up the legs and really
worked it in to the hair before leaving it on to sink in.
Susie then got the clippers so she could tidy up Brogan’s
appearance. She inverted the clippers and tidied up his cheeks and jawline as
well as ‘removing his pants’ by trimming the longer hairs down his back legs.
She then addressed his ears which were untrimmed and tidied these by clipping them out, tidied up the edges and over the top and around the ears. This gave a much ‘sharper’ and cleaner finish to the ears and really accentuated Brogan’s ears once they were pricked.
She then addressed his ears which were untrimmed and tidied these by clipping them out, tidied up the edges and over the top and around the ears. This gave a much ‘sharper’ and cleaner finish to the ears and really accentuated Brogan’s ears once they were pricked.
Samantha then brought out her stock of wood flour. Susie advised
that the wood flour she uses at home is very fine and is really effective at
drying the legs as well as increasing the appearance of volume of hair. The
wood flour was poured in to a tub and Brogan’s leg was placed in to the centre
of the tub and then Susie worked her magic to dry the legs and enhance the
volume of the hair. This she did, once again by starting at the coronet band, and really rubbed the wood flour in to the
feather. Immediately we could see the effects of the flour on the feather as
this was dry within what seemed like seconds but the volume of the feather
increased dramatically – giving a much fuller and wispy appearance. All four
legs were done in this way and then the tub was removed.
The feather had a slightly yellow tinge from the wood flour, but Susie asked Paul – Samantha’s partner – to walk Brogan up the concrete surface of the stable block and the wood flour dropped out of the hair but the appearance of volume remained.
The feather had a slightly yellow tinge from the wood flour, but Susie asked Paul – Samantha’s partner – to walk Brogan up the concrete surface of the stable block and the wood flour dropped out of the hair but the appearance of volume remained.
To remove the yellow tinge from the application of wood flour, Susie applied Leg and Body
Whitener in powder form using a small medium stiffness brush. She dipped the
brush in to the powder then applied it to the feather area in flicking motion
so the Leg and Body Whitener was applied but didn’t create clumps to the all
important feather.
The next job was to improve the appearance of the mane and
forelock area. Obviously, Brogan is currently really lacking forelock hair so
this was the most important part of the makeover. Susie first applied Moisturise
and Condition to the mane – Brogan has a great length and volume of mane – as
this really preserves and enhances both the condition and appearance of mane
and tail hair.
Brogan has – luckily – a good 10 – 12 centimetres
of black mane at the top, before it changes to white. This was to our advantage
as Susie created a plait at the far end
of the black mane section and threaded one of the strands of the plait through
the fabric loop at the top of the false tail. She then continued to plait down
and turned the plait in to a French braid which she thought would hold the tail
more securely in place.
Finishing touches from Susie came in the form of High Shine Serum around the eyes, nose and muzzle, then Brogan was ready to be tacked up for
his ‘after’ pictures.
We hope you agree that Susie did a fabulous job and Brogan was back to his beautiful self!
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| Susie, Brogan and Samantha. |
Products used in this makeover include:
For product and stockist information, visit www.supremeproducts.co.uk
To learn more about Susie and her team, visit www.traditionalshowcobs.co.uk
To see more about Brogan's progress - visit Samantha and Brogan's FB page
To see more about Brogan's progress - visit Samantha and Brogan's FB page
