Clip with style
Top tips to achieve a smart, sharp-looking finish
CLIPPING IS ONE of those jobs that takes a lot of practice and patience to achieve a sharp, smart finish that will turn heads. Transforming your hairy mud monster into a sleek stunner who gets admiring glances wherever he goes is easier than you think if you follow these simple guidelines.
“Choose a large area to start with and begin with confidence, clipping against the lie of the hair”
1 First, decide on the type of clip that your horse will need. Be realistic about your workload and expectations for the winter months and consider carefully before you clip everything off.
2 To get straight lines and curves takes practice. Decide what style of clip you’re going to do and use chalk to draw the lines of the clip on your horse’s coat. It’s much easier to follow once you have a pattern. Where possible, use your horse’s natural body lines to get a good shape to the clip — for example, the leg muscles on the hindleg that come down diagonally from the stifle to the hock area, and the area of muscle behind the elbows.
3 To ensure the clipper blades run through your horse’s coat smoothly and efficiently, make sure he’s spotlessly clean and dry, whether by thorough grooming, or bathing him the day before if the weather allows.
4 Depending on the thickness of your horse’s coat, decide what grade of blade to use. For instance, if he has a soft, fine coat, then a fine-grade blade will give you a good, close finish. If his coat is coarser, or has been left to grow longer, then it will be easier to use a medium blade for the first clip.
5 If your horse’s coat is greasy, you may see clipper teeth marks left behind on the skin. This is due to the blades not being able to get in and do their job as efficiently as they could. The clipper then has to work harder to push the blades through the grease. Not only does this give a rough finish, but it also puts strain on the clipper.
6 If your horse is white or lightcoloured, and particularly if he’s pinkskinned, it’s important to choose the correct grade of blade. Selecting a medium-grade blade will give you a more natural finish, rather than it looking as though you’ve “skinned” him. Greys are probably the most difficult to achieve a perfect finish on — many people make the mistake of using too fine a blade, and then every line shows for the first week or so!
7 Before you start clipping, check your machine and make sure the blades have been sharpened recently. Also, check that you’ve tensioned the clipper correctly — every manufacturer has a different way of tensioning, so don’t assume it’s the same for all machines. Too much tension will give you very hot blades quickly and cause stress to the motor; too loose and the blades will “chew” the coat, giving a moth-eaten look.
8 Oil across the blades before you start, and again every five to 10 minutes. This ensures that the blades perform correctly and without too much heat. It will also help to give you a smooth finish, as well as keep an edge on the blades for longer.
9 Before you start clipping, give your horse a final brush over to ensure that his coat feels clean and smooth, then apply a coat sheen spray, buffing in with a soft mitt. This will help the blades to glide through the coat effortlessly.
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Choose a large area to start with and begin with confidence, clipping against the lie of the hair. Hold the clipper in the hand nearest to your horse and then place your other hand on him, just to the side of where you’re clipping. Use this hand to give some tension on the skin by moving it away from the clipper, ensuring that the skin is always flat. The feel of your hand there also acts as reassurance to your horse.
11 Clip with long, even sweeps, keeping the head of the clipper parallel to the skin and apply a consistent, firm pressure. Overlap each line by about a quarter of the width of the blade — this will keep unsightly tramlines at bay. Keeping an even pressure takes a bit of practice, but once you get the feel of it and know the right pressure to use, you’ll be well on your way to a perfect finish.
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If you apply too much pressure, or uneven pressure, you may see tramlines appearing. These can be carefully clipped out by altering the direction of the clip and clipping slightly upwards along the lines to disguise them.
13 It’s often easier to clip your horse’s head and other sensitive areas at the beginning before he gets fidgety, so factor this in, as well as choosing a quiet time on the yard to start. Turnout and feed times are not the best moments to choose for clipping, unless your horse is very chilled! 14 Keep a rug handy — not only to keep your horse warm and less fidgety, but also because the natural body heat generated under a light rug will make clipping easier.
15 Blending in is a skill that can transform the look of a partially clipped horse. It can also be used to tidy up clipped legs, or take off slightly longer hair without clipping down to the skin. It can be done in a variety of ways — either by keeping the clipping blade slightly off the coat and gently skimming over the hair, or turning the blade over and then using it as though you’re brushing in a downwards direction. 16 It also helps to have a set of trimmers handy. Trimmers make tidying awkward places, such as around the ears and eyes, so much easier. They’re also useful for areas where larger clippers can be just too cumbersome.
17 Like clippers, trimmers also take different grades of blades, or have a built-in blade adjustment. They can trim very close to the skin and show up every mark, so use with care. Medium-grade blades on a full-size clipper usually give a 2mm-length finish. Most trimmers will need to be set on the longer setting to allow for blending and to give a similar looking finish to the main body clip.